"Julian" == Julian Mehnle
"RE: Architectural issues with the SPF specification"
Wed, 5 Jan 2005 22:39:32 +0100
Julian> John A. Martin [jam(_at_)athene(_dot_)jamux(_dot_)com] wrote:
>> > What I want to say is that _if_ "domain" already is a
>> > hostname for the MTA (or can be made so without problems),
>> > then the MTA should say "HELO domain" instead of "HELO
>> > mx.domain". The prerequisite is already satisfied for many
>> > small sites.
>>
>> I would sugest not encouraging the practice of using the name
>> of a collective (a "domain" in this context) also as the name
>> of an individual (a host). This pratice is just as wrongheaded
>> in computers as in real life, IMHO.
Julian> So, is "mehnle.net" a host or a domain? Please give
Julian> reasons for your answer.
That is my point. Is it a collective or a single box? Before "The
Web" replaced "The Net" in many minds, I would suppose it to be a
domain containing hosts, nowadays I wouldn't venture a guess without
more information. IIRC naming a host something like "mehnle.net"
became popular when some apparently considered it a neat way to get a
few more hits on a web site with four fewer key strokes than
"www.mehnle.net". This is pretty much tangential to the issue at
hand. I only wanted to suggest _not to encourage_ the overloading,
not to go hammer and tongs on a crusade against it.
The rationale from rfc1178:
Avoid domain names.
For technical reasons, domain names should be avoided. In
particular, name resolution of non-absolute hostnames is
problematic. Resolvers will check names against domains before
checking them against hostnames. But we have seen instances of
mailers that refuse to treat single token names as domains.
For example, assume that you mail to "libes(_at_)rutgers" from
yale.edu. Depending upon the implementation, the mail may go
to rutgers.edu or rutgers.yale.edu (assuming both exist).
Sounds rather quaint now, no? :)
jam