looking for terminology recommendations concerning non-rooted FQDNs

Fri Feb 22 18:25:13 UTC 2013

Jay,

On 2013-02-22, at 14:20, Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:

>> Actually, I think the problem is the confusion between a label string
>> terminated in a dot (to indicate that no search domain should be
>> appended) and a label string not so-terminated (which might mean that
>> a search domain is attempted, depending on local configuration).
> 
> In fact, Joe, I think it's distinguishing your second case from "a label
> string which is intended to reference a rooted FQDN, but the user did not
> specify the trailing dot -- and yet still does not want a search path 
> applied"...

That's the same as my second case.

"rooted FQDN" is also not well-defined outside this thread. I don't think just adopting the terminology unilaterally is going to make it so.

>> The terminology "root zone" or "root domain" to explain the trailing
>> dot is misleading and unhelpful, I find.
> 
> No, what's *really* unhelpful and misleading is the people who say that
> it is the *dot* which specifies the name of the root,

The dot doesn't specify the name of the root. That's why it's confusing.

> rather than the
> null labelstring which *follows* that dot (which is what it actually
> is, and I'll save everyone's stomach linings by not saying the words
> "alternate root" here. :-)

There is no null label string following the dot in a fully-qualified domain name, in this context. You're confusing the presentation of domain names with wire-format encoding of domain names.

Joe