Yes, this was because some very old (current at the time, however) implementations of gethostbyname(3) were implemented in such a way that if the first character they saw returned isdigit()==TRUE, then, they would assume that they had been passed an IP address and would attempt to encode the string as an IP address rather than looking it up in /etc/hosts or DNS.
Owen On Oct 7, 2011, at 7:41 PM, Joe Hamelin wrote: > On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 7:30 PM, Jay Ashworth <j...@baylink.com> wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- >> "3com.com" > > I recall that 3M was originally mmm.com because they wouldn't allow a number > to start a domain. > > /me runs whois mmm.com > > Yep, Created on..............: 1988-10-31. > > but wait, 3m.com Created on..............: 1988-05-27. > > So was the digit as first octet a limitation with some OS or software (BIND, > sendmail, gopher?) or do I have brain-fade? > > -- > Joe Hamelin, W7COM, Tulalip, WA, 360-474-7474
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
