Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!mcnc!wolves!ggw From: ggw@wolves.uucp (Gregory G. Woodbury) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Who pays the bill? Message-ID: <1990Aug11.020431.17804@wolves.uucp> Date: 11 Aug 90 02:04:31 GMT References: <26A738A8.725B@tct.uucp> <1990Aug8.214750.1614@wolves.uucp> <66582@sgi.sgi.com> Organization: Wolves Den UNIX and Usenet node Lines: 62 Vernon Schryver writes: > >I wrote: >> Wrong, if it isn't directly connected, and does not have a >> valid MX record at the appropriate hosts, IT IS NOT A FQDN! The DNS is >> a fully controlled system, the fact that some people abuse it and use >> domains without insuring MX'ing is in place, that is THEIR error and >> problem. > > >Consider "foo.bar.bozo". Is it a FQDN? I bet you'll say no because "bozo" >is not in 1066 or where ever the current list of top-levels is kept. I don't particularly care if it is "officially" a FQDN in terms of properly registered or whatever else particular quibbling you want to use. If I can submit a name into BIND or other DNS methodology and get an address that is going to provide delivery of the item, I will use that address. >Now consider "foo.uunet.net". Is it a domain name? I bet you'll say yes, >since you can productively ask the root servers about "uunet.net" Again, if ANY server can give me a valid address for the delivery of the item, it is a FQDN and can be used. >Finally take "...!trash!foo.bar.bozo!user" and "...!trash!foo.uunet.net!user" >Are either "foo.bar.bozo" or "foo.uunet.net" FQDNs in that context? It is >sadly likely that many people will presume to answer for the owners of trash. >What if trash is a novel Bitnet/CSNET/JANET/EBCDIC device that considers >"." an ordinary character? (Please do not instruct me on any of those >accronyms. I already know far more about them than I want to know.) Too true! > >There is no Law of UUCP carved in stone by Chesson that makes "." an >illegal hostname or username character in a UUCP route. There is no rule >saying strings separated by "." in a UUCP host name must be known by >nic.ddn.mil, unlike that other universe, which would be discussed not here >in comp.mail.uucp but in comp.mail.sendmail or comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domain. Actually, the rules for uucp hostnames are fairly limited. The original 6 character rule has been relaxed a little, but the conventions do prohibit '.' and other special characters from appearing in the name. >UUCP (tm) is UUCP, different from the Internet (tm). Then there are Bitnet, >Fido, X.400, and other things not dreamed of in our philosophies. > >This debate is about whether any person can reliably know everything others >know, want, and do. Some people believe the answer is yes. >The rest of us are amazed. I am simply quibbling over whether something is a FQDN. In general, I do not want the paths that I generate for pure uucp routing to be munged. In certain cases I may be debugging a route remotely and don't want it re-routed. In such cases the ! path should consist only of the simple hostnames. -- Gregory G. Woodbury @ The Wolves Den UNIX, Durham NC UUCP: ...dukcds!wolves!ggw ...mcnc!wolves!ggw [use the maps!] Domain: ggw@cds.duke.edu ggw%wolves@mcnc.mcnc.org [The line eater is a boojum snark! ]