Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      25 Dec 2002 17:28:16 -0800
From:      swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen)
To:        Roman Neuhauser <neuhauser@bellavista.cz>
Cc:        Kurt Bigler <kkb@breathhost.net>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: email addresses used for lists [was: L0phtcrack]
Message-ID:  <451y4536xb.y45@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <20021225225521.GT690@freepuppy.bellavista.cz>
References:  <BA2DF089.5927%kkb@breathhost.net> <79of793f6v.f79@localhost.localdomain> <20021225225521.GT690@freepuppy.bellavista.cz>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Roman Neuhauser <neuhauser@bellavista.cz> writes:

>     It's just semantics, really.

I'm not sure what that means.  No, seriously, my dictionary says "study
or science of the meaning of language forms", but does that include the
meaning of single words or only about the meaning imparted by sentence
structure, or something else?

Of course this is about the meaning of words.  Specifically, about the
meanings of "domain" and "hostname" (in the context of DNS), keeping in
mind that many key words in our industry have no well-agreed-upon single
definition for all purposes and these are likely to be among them.

"Domain" means something like "a set of nodes in the DNS tree
structure", where nodes have associated info about hosts and domains.

"Hostname" sometimes seems to mean the string returned by the "hostname"
command/function (being distinguished from hostname aliases), but I
think it's fair in the DNS context to use "a domain name which has an
assigned IP".  (In the DNS, "host" doesn't mean "computer", of course.
Hosts are whatever have assigned IP addresses, except maybe networks.
Does DNS even know about networks?  I can't think why it should.)

>     Let's say you have a host with IP address 1.2.3.4, and a name
>     "fubar.org" (A RR) that resolves to 1.2.3.4. Is "fubar.org" a domain
>     or a hostname?

It's a hostname and a domain name (and a domain, loosely speaking).

>     Let's say you have names "fubar.org", "alpha.fubar.org", and
>     "beta.fubar.org". There's no A RR for "fubar.org", but
>     "alpha.fubar.org" resolves to 1.2.3.4, and "beta.fubar.org" resolves
>     to 1.2.3.5. What is what here?

They are all domain names and, except for "fubar.org", hostnames.
(No host, no hostname.)

>     Let's say you have names "fubar.org", "alpha.fubar.org", and
>     "beta.fubar.org". All three names resolve to 1.2.3.4. What is what
>     here?

All are domain names and all are hostnames.

You ask easy questions.  :-)

-- 

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?451y4536xb.y45>