Re: does a home user on dialup need a domain name?

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@mesanetworks.net>]

On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 03:05:23PM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 09:45:01AM -0600, Paul E Condon wrote:
> > On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 08:40:16AM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> > > On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 10:03:19PM -0400, Wayne Topa wrote:
> > > > Douglas Allan Tutty(dtutty@porchlight.ca) is reported to have said:
> > > > > On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 03:39:07PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
>  > 
> > > The question is do I need to use a domain name?
> > > 
> > 
> > The short answer is NO. The longer answer starts with 'Well, it
> > depends on ...'
> > 
>  
> > For convenience, I have all FQDN appear in all copies of /etc/hosts on
> > my LAN. That way I have avoided learning how to set up a proper DNS
> > lookup system. 
> > 
>  
> > Keep in mind that these name assignments link a name to an IP address
> > that must be inaccessable from the internet. So, the name that you
> > assign must also be inaccessable from the internet. This gives you a
> > lot of freedom of choise in name assignment. However, don't try to
> > name one of your hosts 'lists.debian.org', or you will loose contact
> > with this list!
> > 
> 
> Thanks Paul,
> 
> Yes, I have identical /etc/hosts on all boxes (yeah scp).  I know about
> NAT/masq and have shorewall do that.
> 
> As far as inaccessible domainnames is there a TLD reserved (the way that
> ip addresses 192.168.*.* are unrouteable), something that will never be a
> domaine accessible from the internet?  Should I use a trailing '.' at
> the end or not?  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Doug.

I'm not aware of any specially allocated TLD name string that is
guaranteed will never to be used for the name-string of a new TLD by
the administrative authorities of the web. If you use some obscene
word, you can be pretty sure it will not be used. I use TLD = 'gnu'. I
figure that the authority is sufficiently subservient to commercial
interests that open source will never be allowed such prominence. And
for my local domain is use 'lan', so the host I'm using to compose
this, which I call 'big', has the FQDN, 'big.lan.gnu'.  This protects
me from having to deal with wierd, anal-retentive software that
insists on having well formed FQDN entries in /etc/hosts.

The search strategy that is used in searching /etc/hosts is pretty
simple, and not at all like the trickiness that is used in Bind. On
each line, there is either a match, or not. If match, use the IP, if
not go to next line. If EOF, try the next method. I don't think there
is any consideration of trailing dots, or such. The convention is to
have the FQDN as the second field and then what are called 'aliases'
in subsequent fields. But lots of people put FQDN and aliases in other
order with no ill affects. 

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@mesanetworks.net