Whence loopback A-RR's in zonefiles?

[Rick Crelia]

According to Barry Margolin:

> So that users can use the name "localhost" to refer to the loopback
> address, instead of having to refer to it numerically.  I.e. the same
> reason you put *any* name in the zonefile.  "localhost" happens to be a
> very common conventional name for this address, just as www.<domain> is a
> very common name for your web server.
> 

Hmmmm... 

If I were king, I'd make you put it in your local network config files
before requiring it to be in DNS. Just seems odd that a loopback requires
publication...kinda' contradictory there.

I presumed it had something to do with some sort of ancient algorithm
from the early days of BIND and remained supported in later versions
due to inertia. Oh well, so I don't win the trivia contest this
week. :-)

Thanks to all who responded (Kevin, Barry, Peter).


--rc

 Rick Crelia                      rick at cobaltgroup.com
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