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Re: draft-eastlake-2606bis-00.txt: Suggestions for modifications
Ed,
I must be feeling rather uncharitable today.
--On torsdag, oktober 20, 2005 08:16:39 -0400 Edward Lewis
<Ed.Lewis@neustar.biz> wrote:
It's a long leap from "must be alphabetic" to "can be all-numeric" - but
I'd prefer to have something explicit somewhere, so that we don't end up
there by accident.
I *think* it's uncontroversial. But better safe than sorry.
As many of us have said before, 1123 refers to host names, not domain
names. (Host names are a subset of domain names.) In an NS and MX
record, you want a host name, not necessarily so in a RRSIG record.
I disagree with the suggestion to bar all-numeric names. Mostly because
I don't like "rules" that are unnecessary. I don't see the necessity of
such a restriction.
My opinion:
The distinction between "hostnames" and "domain names" makes sense in many
places, but this is NOT one of them. Hiding behind that distinction is a
way to duck the problem that I won't accept; it may be that dnsext is the
wrong WG to do it, because dnsext has (mostly successfully) stayed out of
the "meaning" issues, but I think it's an IETF problem, and the IETF should
solve it.
We (the IETF, which has protocols ranging from layers 2 to 7) have defined
protocols which break in the presence of all-numeric hostnames; if you can
put the following record into the DNS:
129.241.1.99. A 158.38.152.233
two reasonable interpretations of the HTTP spec can end up querying two
different webservers for the URL
http://129.241.1.99/proof-of-concept.html
just to give one example.
That is, in my book, a problem, and should be fixed.
If there is a rule about numeric TLDs not being allowed, this problem is
fixed once, and for all protocols with this problem.
If not, each and every protocol needs updating with its own "tie-breaker
rule" - that's stupid.
It's possible to write that rule in many different forms.
But I think it's the IETF's job to pick one.
Harald
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