Subject: Re: [idn] Re: Hostname syntax

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 14:53:43 +1100

> It clearly says that a "name" may contain periods, which delimit
> "components", and it disallows "single character names", not "single
> character components".
>
> Curiously, it forbids hostnames that end in a dot, and RFC 1034 says
> that domain names that name hosts should follow the rules for
HOSTS.TXT
> (RFC 952), but also says that full (absolute) domain names end in a
dot.

RFC 1034 provides a mechanism to express whether a domainname
is fully qualified or not.  The is no such mechanism with
hostnames.

When you map a hostname into the DNS (presentation format) you
append the period when you map back from the DNS you remove it.
Nothing strange here.

Your problem is that you think RFC 1034 / RFC 1035 have
anything to do with defining what is a valid hostname.

RFC 1034 / RFC 1035 define a distributed database.  There
is a well known mapping from hostnames into keys in that
database that just might have associated address records.
Just as there is a well known mapping from IP addresses to
keys in that database that just might have PTR records whose
content might just map back into a hostname.

Mark
> AMC
--
Mark Andrews, Internet Software Consortium
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: [email-masked]