Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!sdd.hp.com!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!ox.com!ox.com!emv From: emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains Subject: innovative use of HINFO records Message-ID: Date: 12 May 91 00:29:39 GMT Sender: usenet@ox.com (Usenet News Administrator) Organization: OTA Limited Partnership, Ann Arbor MI. Lines: 33 networks with multiple subdomains have a problem of keeping track of all those little domain abbreviations -- let's see, is the math department "math" or "mth" or "mps" or "mcs", what does the computing center call itself these days, etc. Trying to track down what is where is un-necessarily frustrating. this is a hard problem, since different organizations break down along different lines, and it's not always possible to tell in which of 2 or 3 or 5 different departments your colleagues might be in another organization. as a small aid to the problem, i point you to the uiuc.edu domain's use of "HINFO" records to spell out the full names of departments. e.g. cso.uiuc.edu. 50375 HINFO Computing_Services_Office NONE ag.uiuc.edu. 50400 HINFO College_of_Agriculture NONE To the extend that these tokens match with existing or eventual X.500 identifiers, so much the better. It's often possible to discover (or extract from a human postmaster) similar information and lists, but to the extent that more information can be sensibly slipped into the domain name service it seems a good idea to do so. -- Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN, Inc. emv@msen.com "With all of the attention and publicity focused on gigabit networks, not much notice has been given to small and largely unfunded research efforts which are studying innovative approaches for dealing with technical issues within the constraints of economic science." RFC 1216