Message for Bind-users

[Kevin Darcy]

flaps at dgp.toronto.edu wrote:

> Kevin Darcy <kcd at daimlerchrysler.com> writes:
> >McNair, Dan wrote:
> >> Correct me if I am wrong, but the underscore is not a legal character
> >> in any domain name.  This is not a limitation of BIND, it is a restriction
> >> imposed by the domain name standard.  My guess is that there are both
> >> practical and historical reasons for the restriction.
> >
> >There is no "practical" reason other than "this is the standard we agreed
> >to way back when and we're afraid to change it because then we might break
> >some lazy programmers' code (possibly causing security holes, cancer,
> >famine, or maybe even global thermonuclear devastation)".
>
> Is there some particular reason you think underscores *should* be permitted
> in hostnames?

It enlarges the available namespace and offers a higher degree of naming
flexibility.

> The standard way to produce something looking like a space in a hostname
> is to use a hyphen.

It's a moot point what is "standard" and what isn't; I thought we were
discussing whether the standard actually makes any sense.

> A working system doesn't need multiple ways to do the same thing.
> Hyphens suffice.

Well, we don't *need* DNS at all: everyone could just use dot-notation IP
addresses, or, for that matter, strings of 1's and 0's. DNS, and underscores,
enhance the human/computer interface, or at least are perceived to by many of
the humans who use the interface. It's not a matter of what "suffices", but of
whether the cost of the restriction, or its relaxation, outweighs the benefit.


- Kevin

>