Looking for RFC

[Barry Margolin]

In article <3873E9C5.6799F0CC at daimlerchrysler.com>,
Kevin Darcy  <kcd at daimlerchrysler.com> wrote:
>Wightman,Andrew wrote:
>
>> Can anyone point me to the correct/latest RFC that contains information
>> about restricted characters within host names for use with DNS?
>
>Sorry to nitpick your question, but not all hosts are Internet-connected,
>and even those that are, may not use their "hostname" -- the name by which
>the OS instance identifies itself in text form -- for access over the
>Internet. The RFC's wouldn't presume to cover such situations. The most
>you're likely to find is an RFC which defines legal "Internet hostnames",
>i.e. names used for accessing hosts over the Internet. That would be
>RFC 1123. It incorporates by reference an earlier RFC (952) that defined
>the format of the HOSTS.TXT file, a kind of replicated,
>network-encompassing /etc/hosts file the non-scalability of which led to
>the development of DNS.

If you're using DNS to store an A record, you're presumed to be following
the Internet protocols, even if you're just on a private internet.  So BIND
will enforce the RFC's rules.

The naming restrictions aren't applied to non-A records (well, they might
be applied to MX records as well, since the part after the @ in an email
address is required to be a hostname).

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
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