Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!ccncsu!grieg.CS.ColoState.Edu!bentson From: bentson@grieg.CS.ColoState.Edu (Randolph Bentson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Gripe about nodename restrictions Keywords: domain name limits, nodename Message-ID: <2425@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> Date: 17 Aug 89 01:59:00 GMT Sender: news@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU Reply-To: bentson@grieg.CS.ColoState.Edu (Randolph Bentson) Distribution: usa Organization: Computer Science Department, Colorado State University Lines: 23 I've a copy of RFC 1034 (Domain Concepts and Facilities) and have checked therein before starting this mild flame... As you may notice from my address, we have a three part domain name following the node name. It seems to work well here and we see no reason to change. However, HP seems to think that one should only have a two level domain name, e.g. HP.COM. When I issue the command "nodename anon.cs.colostate.edu", I get a message "nodename: invalid node name syntax". Back to RFC1034... check section 3.1 last paragraph and the example in 3.5 for mention of a three part domain and size limits. Also note RFC1035 sections 2.3.4 and 3.1 for more on size limits. I suspect that a really aggresive competitor could disqualify HP as a bidder for failing to meet this spec. Has this happened? (Remember DEC getting bumped from the DOD procurement a year or so ago, based on their failure to provide the "standard" Unix?) Yet more flaming is based on the hostname length restrictions. While this isn't as well founded as the other part, it's still irritating to come upon limits (of eight characters), seemingly based on tradition.