As noted before, RFC 1035 set some specifications. But there were a
number of clarifications and changes, notably RFC 1123 and RFC 2181.
So, Pyh, your quote is not quite correct today. The first part never
was - it only refers to second-level domains. The second part is
correct for hostnames only.
RFC 1035:
<label> ::= <letter> [ [ <ldh-str> ] <let-dig> ]
<ldh-str> ::= <let-dig-hyp> | <let-dig-hyp> <ldh-str>
<let-dig-hyp> ::= <let-dig> | "-"
<let-dig> ::= <letter> | <digit>
<letter> ::= any one of the 52 alphabetic characters A through Z in
upper case and a through z in lower case
<digit> ::= any one of the ten digits 0 through 9
Note that while upper and lower case letters are allowed in domain
names, no significance is attached to the case. That is, two names with
the same spelling but different case are to be treated as if identical.
The labels must follow the rules for ARPANET host names. They must
start with a letter, end with a letter or digit, and have as interior
characters only letters, digits, and hyphen. There are also some
restrictions on the length. Labels must be 63 characters or less.
[Joe note: but see RFC 1123 below.]
RFC 1123:
2.1 Host Names and Numbers
The syntax of a legal Internet host name was specified in RFC-952
[DNS:4]. One aspect of host name syntax is hereby changed: the
restriction on the first character is relaxed to allow either a
letter or a digit. Host software MUST support this more liberal
syntax.
Host software MUST handle host names of up to 63 characters and
SHOULD handle host names of up to 255 characters.
RFC 2181:
11. Name syntax
Occasionally it is assumed that the Domain Name System serves only
the purpose of mapping Internet host names to data, and mapping
Internet addresses to host names. This is not correct, the DNS is a
general (if somewhat limited) hierarchical database, and can store
almost any kind of data, for almost any purpose.
The DNS itself places only one restriction on the particular labels
that can be used to identify resource records. That one restriction
relates to the length of the label and the full name. The length of
any one label is limited to between 1 and 63 octets. A full domain
name is limited to 255 octets (including the separators). The zero
length full name is defined as representing the root of the DNS tree,
and is typically written and displayed as ".". Those restrictions
aside, any binary string whatever can be used as the label of any
resource record. Similarly, any binary string can serve as the value
of any record that includes a domain name as some or all of its value
(SOA, NS, MX, PTR, CNAME, and any others that may be added).
Implementations of the DNS protocols must not place any restrictions
on the labels that can be used. In particular, DNS servers must not
refuse to serve a zone because it contains labels that might not be
acceptable to some DNS client programs. A DNS server may be
configurable to issue warnings when loading, or even to refuse to
load, a primary zone containing labels that might be considered
questionable, however this should not happen by default.
Note however, that the various applications that make use of DNS data
can have restrictions imposed on what particular values are
acceptable in their environment. For example, that any binary label
can have an MX record does not imply that any binary name can be used
as the host part of an e-mail address. Clients of the DNS can impose
whatever restrictions are appropriate to their circumstances on the
values they use as keys for DNS lookup requests, and on the values
returned by the DNS. If the client has such restrictions, it is
solely responsible for validating the data from the DNS to ensure
that it conforms before it makes any use of that data.
See also [RFC1123] section 6.1.3.5.
[Joe note: I think the section number is incorrect.]
--
/*********************************************************************\
**
** Joe Yao j...@tux.org - Joseph S. D. Yao
**
\*********************************************************************/
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