🚀 go-pugleaf

Andreas Karrer wrote:
> 
> I was quite sure that underscores (_), ascii dec(95) were not allowed
> in host and domain names. If memory serves, BIND in its later versions
> enforces this (unless explicitly overwritten). 

Correct. Current BIND implementations do not yet enforce it, they just
log the event.

> I'm not aware of
> an RFC that relaxed the host name requirements later than RFC 1123
> (which relaxed the rules such that a non-toplevel domain part may
> begin with a digit). But then, there are a lot of RFCs issued these
> days, and I don't read them all :-)
> 
> But there seem to be three second-level domains under .ch:
> 
>    be_first.ch         Wonderman Cato Johnson AG, Zurich
>    royal_agency.ch     Royal Agency SA, Grolley
>    sli_ag.ch           SLI Consulting AG, Frauenfeld
> 
> Comments?

Sure.

1. Sli_ag.ch was registered pre-1996 when testing for registration was 
   not as advanved as it is now ;-).
2. Royal_agency.ch: a this year registration (February 1). It slipped
   through. Should not have happened. The scripts then had a bug in 
   this respect.

3. Be_first.ch had been a terrible case. This fine advertitizing agency
   (Wonderman Cato Johnson AG) had claimed to already have printed 
   thousands of documents before applying for the name. They had seen
   the other two registrations above and deduced from them a right for 
   their own, although the policy clearly states (par. 13) which chars 
   are accepted. They had to submit a written and signed statement to 
   the registry confirming that this name will be deleted by end of 96.

It may be necessary to point out that the registry in priciple has 
_nothing_ against using special characters. If someone does _not_ 
intend to communicate with others: use them because BIND will not 
resolve these and e.g. your famous WWW server cannot be reached. But 
this may not exactly be what people want.

> 
>  - Andi Karrer


Marcel Schneider@SWITCH