On Tue, 28 Dec 2004, Alex van den Bogaerdt wrote:
DNS domains are in fact groups of HOST records and DOMAIN is something
that has been delegated within DNS hierarchy (i.e. its what is pointed
Again: I think you are confusing zones, domains and other related
stuff. If you are going to present it as a fact sheet, make sure
you get it right.
You are describing a ZONE and are calling it a domain. That in
itself is not wrong, because a zone _is_ a domain. However, it
is not true that a domain must be a group of hosts.
A zone can consist of records for multiple domains so they are not same
thing! It is true however that zones are distinguished by being at
different dns authority levels.
Domain seems rather flexible term as many use it however what I described
is the most common understanding that sigle host that is defined only
within a zome is not necessarily a domain (although it will become one
if it has attributes other then just "A") or has a sub-heircarchy with
other hosts.
But we seem to be getting too much into dns detail nitpicking (rather
then email related matters which is what this glossary is about), so I
have specific question if the following description which is currently
in the glossary is correct or not:
DOMAIN:
Domain Name (or just Domain) is a very common term for internet
infrastructure that refers to naming of all internet end-points which have
names like c.b.a, i.e. its long name separate by number of ".". The naming
system is hierarchical and ICANN is de-jure (but not necessarily de-facto
for every internet user) authority to decide on the list of "a" or root
TLDs. Name delegation in each TLD is done by different Registrars and in
the end each ISP (or directly end-user) has been delegated one or more
Domains which the user either uses directly as FQDN or sets up HOSTS for
each system.
--
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net