> Many sysadmins disable BIND's "check-names" option because > their less knowledgeable colleagues assign illegal names. In > particular, many use underscores in system names, even though > they're verboten. > > BIND *should* have a separate option that allows underscores > in names to accommodate this frequent glitch, but it doesn't. > So, the checking becomes all-or-nothing. > > --Brett No. There is a specification about what is legal in a hostname / mailname (RHS of @). If an application is expecting a hostname, it should only be given hostnames. The library (or server) should filter out non conforment names. You do not know what the application is using as a field seperator and "_" is a perfectly valid character to use to seperate a list of hostnames. Yes I am playing devils advocate here but you have to do that at time to knock down silly ideas. You either enforce the specification you you don't bother at all. Check-names is on by default for good reason. To force people to become aware of what they are doing and where they are breaking a standard. Underscore is also a silly character to have. How many hostnames are in the following html fragment when you read it on a ascii terminal? <UL>foobar.au_example.net</UL> Mark P.S. There are interperative languages where "_" is an assignment operator and where a hostname could be used as a variable name. P.P.S. I made this arguement long before I worked for ISC and it is still my view. > > At 11:00 PM 6/2/99 +0200, Pavel Kankovsky wrote: > >On Mon, 31 May 1999, bobk wrote: > > > > > Another thing to remember is that it is possible to put ABSOLUTELY > > > ANYTHING inside a DNS domain name. This includes whitespace, control > > > characters, and even NULL. > > > >Use BIND's check-names option to refuse illegal answers. > > > >--Pavel Kankovsky aka Peak [ Boycott Microsoft--http://www.vcnet.com/bms ] > >"NSA GCHQ KGB CIA nuclear conspiration war weapon spy agent... Hi Echelon!" > -- Mark Andrews, Internet Software Consortium 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: markaat_private
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