[ih] Tell me about host names and 3com

[Brian E Carpenter]

Yes but, but, 1123 is *host* requirements and 952 was about /etc/hosts.

(FYA, I just checked and Windows 10 allows entries in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts that start with a digit.)

1123 didn't update 1035, which is about domain names. Maybe that should be submitted as an erratum.

(Yes, I did read some of the namedroppers thread that was cited, and the argument about whether host names are different from domain names is hardly new.)

Regards
    Brian

On 17-Jan-24 12:29, Andrew Sullivan via Internet-history wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 02:37:28PM -0500, John Levine via Internet-history wrote:
> 
>> Does anyone remember the details? RFC1035 is still the official
>> standard for hostnames, and the initial letter rule has been wrong for
>> a long time.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> What you want is RFC 1123, section 2.1:
> 
> 
>         The syntax of a legal Internet host name was specified in RFC-952
>         [DNS:4].  One aspect of host name syntax is hereby changed: the
>         restriction on the first character is relaxed to allow either a
>         letter or a digit.  Host software MUST support this more liberal
>         syntax.
> 
> Bob Braden actually referred to this to me in a conversation one time as "the 3Com exception".
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> A
>