Punycode & nslookup

[Chris Buxton]

On Dec 4, 2009, at 10:12 AM, Joe Baptista wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Chris Buxton <cbuxton at menandmice.com> wrote:
>  
>> nslookup will only understand IDN if BIND is compiled with that option in the ./configure step.
> 
> might be a good idea if it was the default option. as idn becomes popular the lack of idn support for the tools will result in confusion.

The reason IDN support in the BIND query tools (dig, host, nslookup) is not the default is because it relies on a 3rd party library, which must be installed and configured by the package builder beforehand. This is just like SSL support, needed for DNSSEC and TSIG, except that most operating systems don't already ship with libidnkit.

Chris Buxton
Professional Services
Men & Mice