Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!ucbvax!TGV.COM!VANCE
From: VANCE@TGV.COM (Icarus)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Underscores
Message-ID: <668046772.51825.VANCE@TGV.COM>
Date: 4 Mar 91 00:32:52 GMT
References: <EMV.91Mar2230553@poe.aa.ox.com>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: TGV, Incorporated
Lines: 17

>underscores are found in some hostnames managed by merit on behalf of
>the nsfnet, e.g. ann_arbor.mi.nss.nsf.net, 129.140.17.77.  until these
>names are changed, it's hard to argue that underscores are illegal,
>just ill-advised.

Doing something in broad daylight doesn't make it legal.  If we want to expand
the allowable characters in host names (which I think is quite reasonable),
then let's move on that.  RFC 1123 (Host Requirements) explicitly relaxes the
restriction of the first character in a host/domain name being a letter (now
allows numbers as well), but it does NOT add an underscore to the valid set of
characters.

Until a change is "officially" made, using underscores in hostnames is a
mistake, and can cause problems for some hosts.

Regards,
-----Stuart