Henry B. Hotz" <hotz@jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>
>hotzsun.jpl.nasa.gov.	A  137.78.218.98	; Sun SPARCstation 5
>hotzmac.jpl.nasa.gov.	A  137.78.218.94	; PowerMac 7500
>hotzlp.jpl.nasa.gov.	A  137.78.218.138	; HP LaserJet 5MP
>macbsd.jpl.nasa.gov.	A  137.78.218.53	; Mac 840av running NetBSD
>macbsd-840av.jpl.nasa.gov.	CNAME	macbsd.jpl.nasa.gov.
>- -------------------------------------
>
>Note the trailing "." on all domain names.  You got funny stuff under
>MacTCP if you didn't have them.  Don't know if it still matters under OT.
>

I read something in one of the RFC's (either 1033 or 1912).  The period
acts as a terminator.  Having it at the end denotes the entry as fully
qualified, whereas unqualified names have no period, and are appended with
the network name.  Ie--in Henry's domain is 'jpl.nasa.gov', taking away the
period at the end of

macbsd.jpl.nasa.gov

would cause it to be expanded to

macbsd.jpl.nasa.gov.jpl.nasa.gov.

Likewise, the above domains could be listed with unqualified machine names

ie 'hotzsun' (no period) would become 'hotzsun.jpl.nasa.gov.'

When I trying to set up NAMED, having full domain names in the hosts file,
but left off the terminating periods.  Then scratched my head as to why the
domain names were 'doubling up'.

Check out RFC 1033 and RCF 1912.  The latter, titled something to the
effect of 'Common configuration errors' was very helpful.

Steve Revilak
revilak@umbsky.cc.umb.edu