Forbidding all-numeric hostnames
Would anyone object if I made netcfg forbid all-numeric hostnames? RFC
1912 s2.1 says you aren't allowed them (although its status is
Informational, and RFC 2181 seems to supersede that restriction). DNS
lore such as http://www.zytrax.com/books/dns/apa/names.html advises
against their use. More importantly for Debian, I think, it's clear
from #65041 that attempting to use all-numeric hostnames in our system
is asking for trouble. I have to say I've never encountered a real
network that used them, and they would confuse me no end if I did.
The only particular obstacle seems to be the MUST in RFC 1123 s2.1.
Firstly, I suspect that this was more intended to mandate that host
software had to support names like 3com.com, although obviously that's
guesswork. Secondly, I think this applies more to software that might
need to interoperate with hosts with existing all-numeric names than to
software that's arranging for the installation of new hosts.
Thanks,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@debian.org]
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