Message-Id: <3.0.32.20000221220332.01705a94@odie.av8.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 22:20:05 -0500
To: "D. J. Bernstein" <djb@cr.yp.to>, namedroppers@internic.net
From: Dean Anderson <dean@av8.com>
Subject: Re: a.dns.int

Actually, I think many people use dash-separated IP numbers to 'anonymize'
names.  I don't see why this shouldn't be documented as a BCP.  This
requires no changes to the protocol.

I think the issue with MX records is somewhat orthoganal, or at least could
be solved independently.  There isn't a format issue, really, and it
currently works because most resolvers will work if given an IP address in
dotted decimal form instead of a hostname.  I don't remember if this is
required behavior or not, but I don't see the downside of making it
required in the resolver, and changing the specification for the MX to
allow dotted decimal IP addresses or hostnames.

		--Dean


Around 07:54 PM 2/20/2000 -0000, rumor has it that D. J. Bernstein said:
>Let me add some practical comments.
>
>Thousands of system administrators are _already_ using dotted-decimal
>domain names in MX records. My MTA, like sendmail, supports these names.
>
>My DNS cache now supports dotted-decimal domain names. This provides an
>immediate benefit for other MTAs.
>
>It's reasonably clear what will happen to this protocol in the future.
>System administrators will continue to use dotted-decimal domain names.
>There will be occasional failures from other MTAs running under other
>DNS caches; the MTA implementors and the DNS implementors will react by
>adding support. Eventually, no matter what DNSEXT does, dotted-decimal
>domain names will be a de facto standard.
>
>DNSEXT can reduce the number of failures by documenting this situation,
>and by delegating some TLDs to the servers that I described.
>
>The only remaining problem will be the (many) versions of BIND that
>destroy dotted-decimal domain names. I'm willing to add one line of code
>to support a.dns.int for BIND's benefit; this won't eliminate the
>problem but it will provide an easy workaround.
>
>---Dan
>
>
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>
>
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           Plain Aviation, Inc                  dean@av8.com
           LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP          http://www.av8.com
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