CNAME for main domain

[Michael Niksch]

> Absolute single label hostnames are not supported

Shouldn't at least http://ai./ have worked properly?
                            ^

-- 
Michael Niksch                     /Zurich/IBM @ IBMCH
IBM Zurich Research Laboratory     nik at zurich.ibm.com
Saeumerstrasse 4                   http://www.zurich.ibm.com/~nik/
CH-8803 Rueschlikon / Switzerland  P: +41-1-724-8913 F: +41-1-724-8080


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To: Danny Mayer <mayer at gis.net>
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From: Mark_Andrews at isc.org
Subject: Re: CNAME for main domain 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 28 Nov 2002 00:31:35 CDT."
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> At 09:46 PM 11/27/02, Mark.Andrews at isc.org wrote:
> 
> > > At 07:58 PM 11/27/02, Mark.Andrews at isc.org wrote:
> > > >         The "www" convention came well after HTTP was invented.
> > >
> > > True. TBL invented HTTP around 1989-1990. People were starting
> > > to use the www convention for HTTP servers in 1993-1994. Before
> > > that people just put up servers on any machine and referenced that.
> > > It was years after that that people start to add A records to the
> > > apex of the domain so that people didn't have to type in the www
> > > part. I don't think it was common to do so before that.
> > >
> > > Danny
> > >
> >
> >         A records at the apex of the zone were common to handle non
> >         MX aware MTA's.  People just stopped accommodating broken
> >         MTA's.
> 
> Interesting.
> 
> Back in 1997 the Island of Anguilla set up a Web server resulting in
> the shortest URL in existence:     http://ai/
> It's no longer there, but I still have the mail message about it dated
> March, 1997.
> 
> Danny

	And it was unreachable from all sites that had machines
	named ai.   Just because some resolvers try a single label
	name as is doesn't mean that it is correct.  libbind has
	switches to turn this off.  Absolute single label hostnames
	are not supported (though they may work on some occasions).
	That is why every host was initially placed in the ARPA
	domain.

	Mark
--
Mark Andrews, Internet Software Consortium
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark.Andrews at isc.org