The Underscore Archives

on 24/4/07 00:20, Matthew Wilkes at matt at matthewwilkes.name wrote:

>> HELO mail.watershed.co.uk
> 
> Of course, a FQDN always ends in a '.', so that would be invalid too ;)

An FQDN is simply a full specification of a domain name with nothing left
implied. Now although you could interpret that as meaning you always have to
have the trailing dot (so as not to "imply" the root zone), it's
universally accepted that so long as the fqdn both with and without a dot
resolve to the same address, the no-dot version is still an FQDN.

Obviously in the DNS system and such, you put the trailing dot to show it's
an FQDN, but one isn't necessary in order to be an FQDN.

And yes, you were probably joking, but it's important :)

Oliver.