[dns-operations] I know I'm a curmudgeon but

[Edward Lewis]

Running dig on a newly built Linux machine I see 
the below output (and man page explaining it).

To me this just seems wrong.  Mucking with the 
bare metal here is not desirable.  The zone *is* 
 x n - - x k c 2 a l 3 h y e 2 a . , it is not 
the native script version (which is unprintable 
on the machine I'm on).

Comments?  Should DiG's output be unchanged or is 
this "good?"  Should the OS vendors be asked to 
stop this?

 $   d i g   x n - - x k c 2 a l 3 h y e 2 a .   n s 
 
 ;   < < > >   D i G  
 9 . 7 . 3 - P 3 - R e d H a t - 9 . 7 . 3 - 2 . e l 6 _ 1 . P 3 . 3  
 < < > >   x n - - x k c 2 a l 3 h y e 2 a .  
 n s 
 ; ;   g l o b a l   o p t i o n s :   + c m d 
 ; ;   G o t   a n s w e r : 
 ; ;   - > > H E A D E R < < -   o p c o d e :  
 Q U E R Y ,   s t a t u s :   N O E R R O R ,  
 i d :   2 0 8 2 3 
 ; ;   f l a g s :   q r   r d   r a ;  
 Q U E R Y :   1 ,   A N S W E R :   9 ,  
 A U T H O R I T Y :   0 ,  
 A D D I T I O N A L :   0 
 
 ; ;   Q U E S T I O N   S E C T I O N : 
 ;
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» . 	 	 I N 	 N S 
 
 ; ;   A N S W E R   S E C T I O N : 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S 	 n s - d . n i c . l k . 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S 	 n s - l . n i c . l k . 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S 	 n s - t . n i c . l k . 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S  
	 l k . c o m m u n i t y d n s . n e t . 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S  
	 n i c . l k - a n y c a s t . p c h . n e t . 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S 	 n s 1 . a c . l k . 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S 	 n s 3 . a c . l k . 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S 	 n s - b . n i c . l k . 

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» . 	 8 6 4 0 0 	 I N 	 N S 	 n s - c . n i c . l k . 
 
 ; ;   Q u e r y   t i m e :   2 8 1   m s e c 
 ; ;   S E R V E R :   1 7 2 . 1 6 . 0 . 2 3 # 5 3 ( 1 7 2 . 1 6 . 0 . 2 3 ) 
 ; ;   W H E N :   M o n   J u l     9   1 5 : 3 3 : 2 7   2 0 1 2 
 ; ;   M S G   S I Z E     r c v d :   2 4 0 

It's trying to be nice (from the man page):

IDN SUPPORT
        If dig has been built with IDN (internationalized domain name)
        support, it can accept and display non-ASCII domain names.  dig
        appropriately converts character encoding of domain name before
        sending a request to DNS server or displaying a reply from the
        server. If you´d like to turn off the IDN support for some reason,
        defines the IDN_DISABLE environment variable. The IDN support is
        disabled if the variable is set when dig runs.

I like the "for some reason" quip.

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Edward Lewis
NeuStar                    You can leave a voice message at +1-571-434-5468

2012...time to reuse those 1984 calendars!