Can I have a *.domain.com A record

[Mark Andrews]

In message <4AE5C6CC.8020802 at ou.edu>, Peter Laws writes:
> Hey!  RTFRFC!  :-)
> 
> Except a scanning of that RFC doesn't say anything about not using them, 
> only in clarifying RFC 1034's intentions regarding wildcards.
> 
> So, why is it a "very bad idea"?
> 
> Peter

What is legal and what works well are two very differnet things.

Wild cards lead to more application traffic than populating the
zone with the actual domains that are in use.  If you are in a
position to know all the names in use (and a virtual web hoster is)
then wild cards should not be used.  Wild cards are designed for
the case where it is impossible to know all the names in use which
is why there were mainly use for MX records to get mail to mail
gateways.  Other uses are often administrators being lazy and as a
result everyone else picks up the cost of that laziness.  Yes, there
is a real cost if a web browser makes a http connection only to be
told the virtual address does not exists.

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