special characters

[Joseph S D Yao]

On Wed, Dec 29, 1999 at 04:30:04PM -0500, Chris Cell wrote:
> System: Red Hat 6.0
> 
> Version: Bind 8
> 
> Problem:  Special Characters
> 
> Description:
> 
> We are implementing dns on this red hat box.
> Some computer names on this existing network
> have "underscore" characters (_) in their host
> name.  Is it possible to use underscore characters
> in this version of bind.
> 
> We have added these computer names as A records
> and as CNAME records.  An nslookup on these names and
> ip addresses do not give a result.
> 
> Can this work.
> 
> Thank you in advance.
> 
> C. Cell
> Senior Systems Engineer

Underscores have never been legal in host names, per the RFCs, even
though older BINDs accepted them.  In this version, 'named' had to
tighten down the name syntax to prevent certain exploits or possible
exploits, and went with the strict "textbook" definition.

It is possible to weaken this via options in the named.conf file.  It is
not recommended.