I was reminded of $subject by http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-admin/2006-01/msg00002.php
While I haven't tried it, I suspect that allowing a DNS host name would take little work (basically removing the AI_NUMERICHOST flag passed to getaddrinfo in hba.c). There was once a good reason not to allow it: slow DNS lookups would lock up the postmaster. But now that we do this work in an already-forked backend, with an overall timeout that would catch any indefinite blockage, I don't see a good reason why we shouldn't let people use DNS names. Thoughts? regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match