Re: [DNSOP] dotless names (was Re: followup and proposed actions: RFC 6761 interim and next steps)

[Paul Vixie <[e-mail]>]

David Conrad wrote:
> <digression>
>
>> dotless names were never contemplated as endpoints, even in the HOSTS.TXT era
>
> Err, what?
>
> All names were dotless in the "HOSTS.TXT era" (well, depending on what you mean by the "HOSTS.TXT era" -- I'm assuming pre-RFC 881) and they were all endpoints.

By RFC 952, there were no dotless names in HOSTS.TXT, even though the
grammar allowed it.

>> the raw
>> fact of the matter is that a dotless name should _never_ be accidentally
>> presentation-reachable.
>
> I'd be OK dotless names if there is a mutual understanding of the implications of those name for relevant parties. For example, I think it'd be fun to move the root servers out of root-servers.net and into the root, i.e.:
>
> $ORIGIN .
> ...
> a IN A 198.41.0.4
> b IN A 192.228.79.201
> ...

i'd really like to see those as A.ROOT-SERVERS, B.ROOT-SERVERS, etc,
where ROOT-SERVERS. was an empty non-terminal (not a delegation point).
so, in-zone, but not dotless. because most of my daily-use tools won't
let me ping "A" or "A." since they are both treated as local names (to
be found in YP/NIS or /etc/hosts or the Windows "hosts" file), and i
like pinging root name servers.


-- 
Paul Vixie