BIND multiple address list

[Barry Margolin]

In article <38042529.57FC0B6C at hk.china.com>,
Edmund  <c990077 at hk.china.com> wrote:
>A response for a type A record configured with multiple addresses will return
>a multiple address list.  I have modified the BIND 8.2.1 code to have the
>first IP address replacing rest of the addresses in the returned address
>list.  Does anyone know if this would have any bad side effect on the client
>side if it receive an address list with multiple address with identical
>entries ?  What I mean is that will an address list for type 'A' record with
>identical mutiple address entries causing problem for client software such as
>Browser or ICQ or...etc. ??

Most applications only use the first address in a response, so they won't
notice the difference.  Some applications will try all the addresses until
they succeed, but I doubt that most of them do any checking for
duplication, so they'll end up trying the same address multiple times.
This will slow them down, but otherwise shouldn't have any adverse effects.

But why would you want to do this?  If you don't want to return additional
addresses, why not just return a single A record?

P.S. Why did you link this into the thread about "Minimal BIND
distribution"?  Please don't use "Reply" if you're starting a new topic, it
makes things very confusing for those of us who use threading newsreaders.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
*** DON'T SEND TECHNICAL QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME, post them to newsgroups.
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