[H-GEN] Allowable chars in a host name?

[Michael Anthon]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
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Peter Arnold wrote:

> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]
> 
> Can someone point me to a definitve guide (or a summary) of what
> characters are acceptable in an internet/DNS frendly host name?

In case Edwin's (quite correct of course) quote didn't make sense... it 
meant letters, numbers and hyphens (-) with the extra limitation that 
host names should start with letters only (not a number or hyphen).  I 
was amused when Taubmans recently ran an ad campaign quoting their 
website as 603010.com.au.  Obviously it does work... but it's not 
strictly a valid hostname.

Cheers
Michael


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