Looking for RFC

[Kevin Darcy]

Wightman,Andrew wrote:

> Can anyone point me to the correct/latest RFC that contains information
> about restricted characters within host names for use with DNS?

Sorry to nitpick your question, but not all hosts are Internet-connected,
and even those that are, may not use their "hostname" -- the name by which
the OS instance identifies itself in text form -- for access over the
Internet. The RFC's wouldn't presume to cover such situations. The most
you're likely to find is an RFC which defines legal "Internet hostnames",
i.e. names used for accessing hosts over the Internet. That would be
RFC 1123. It incorporates by reference an earlier RFC (952) that defined
the format of the HOSTS.TXT file, a kind of replicated,
network-encompassing /etc/hosts file the non-scalability of which led to
the development of DNS.


- Kevin