Pop Quiz

[Joseph S D Yao]

On Wed, Aug 21, 2002 at 08:33:56AM +0000, Des Lyle wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I work for an ISP in the UK in the customer/technical support dept and just
> recently the whole dept has had to take a in-house test that encompassed
> product and technical knowledge based around our services, internet
> protocols and their functionality etc.
> 
> One of the multiple choice questions was based on a incorrect DSN record
> that we had to identify. I got the question right as it was a MX record that
> was pointing to a IP address.
> 
> However, one of my colleagues got the answer wrong due to his belief that it
> is now possible to point MX records to IP addresses based on the current
> version of BIND.
> 
> I readily admit that he is generally more technical than I am but I think he
> has got it wrong this time.
> 
> Can someone set the record (no pun intended) straight please.

You're right, he's wrong.

RFC 2181 (Clarifications to the DNS Specification), section 10.3,
states that it must be a domain but may not be a CNAME alias.  Section
11 also implies that it is a host name.  RFC 974 and RFC 1035 state
this explicitly.  There are no more recent RFCs that I can see that
change this.

-- 
Joe Yao				jsdy at center.osis.gov - Joseph S. D. Yao
OSIS Center Systems Support					EMT-B
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