Bind 8 special characters

[Barry Margolin]

In article <3874FF6B.5995C6FA at daimlerchrysler.com>,
Kevin Darcy  <kcd at daimlerchrysler.com> wrote:
>That's an answer, but not really to the question I asked. Did hosts have to
>included in HOSTS.TXT in order to connect to the Internet? I'm trying to figure
>out what you meant by "If you connect to the Internet you play by its rules". If
>machines could connect to the Internet without being in HOSTS.TXT, then
>it appears
>your statement is incorrect, at least insofar as "the rules" consisted of
>RFC 952,
>the only RFC you cited.

Before DNS, if you wanted your host to be accessed by name rather than just
address, you had to get the name->address translation inserted into
HOSTS.TXT.

Since every machine had its own copy of HOSTS.TXT, you could put your name
in your local HOSTS.TXT but not the one at the the NIC.  Then your users
could get there, but people at other sites wouldn't be able to look up your
machine.

But RFC 952 doesn't say that a machine has to be in HOSTS.TXT, it simply
specifies the format of the file, which includes the format of hostnames.
This is then referenced in many places, include RFC 1123, so it's
entrenched as the standard for hostnames in TCP/IP applications.

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