Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!ucbvax!POINCARE.GEOM.UMN.EDU!slevy
From: slevy@POINCARE.GEOM.UMN.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Translating names/addresses to human-readable descriptions
Message-ID: <9012110031.AA11352@warschawski.geom.umn.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 90 00:31:17 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 14

Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.uu.no> wrote:
> ... To show how really neat it can be, you can put in a TXT RR for
> cme.nist.gov, explaining what "CME" means, and another with the exact
> location of the domain (if applicable). ...

Beware: the TXT RR is unknown to the BIND 4.8 server, which is still
pretty widespread.  It may be unknown to some later versions too, I haven't
checked.  If you use TXT RR's run BIND 4.8, or the secondaries for your
server run 4.8, you'll lose!  This is probably the reason several people,
including Paul Pomes at UIUC and we at UMN, use HINFO rather than TXT RR's
to store miscellaneous text in the DNS -- it's kludgy but effective.

     Stuart Levy, Geometry Group, University of Minnesota
     slevy@geom.umn.edu