[dns-operations] dotless domains

[Mike Jones]

On 21 September 2012 13:44, JP Velders <jpv at veldersjes.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Sep 2012, Bart Smit wrote:
>
>> Bad example. The first *four* browsers I tried (firefox, chrome, safari,
>> and opera on osx) handle this perfectly.
>
> I might be a bit daft, but there's a very big difference in my
> techy-education with typing in URL's versus the regular people who
> just type something into an input field. Most browsers and/or
> applications will work very differently when getting the input of
> "<something without dots>" vs "<something with dots>" vs "<something
> that could be url-sh>", often application version, user-settings and
> OS make/model/version are the behavioral differentiators... :(

This is what my windows 7 system thinks about dotless names:

C:\Users\mike>ipconfig /flushdns
Windows IP Configuration
Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.
C:\Users\mike>ping dk
Ping request could not find host dk. Please check the name and try again.
C:\Users\mike>ping dk.
Ping request could not find host dk.. Please check the name and try again.
C:\Users\mike>ipconfig /flushdns
Windows IP Configuration
Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.
C:\Users\mike>ping dk.
Pinging dk [2a01:630:0:40:b1a:b1a:2011:1] with 32 bytes of data:
<snip>
C:\Users\mike>ping dk
Pinging dk [2a01:630:0:40:b1a:b1a:2011:1] with 32 bytes of data:
<snip>

Not that it matters much because all my web browsers assume that "dk"
(or "dk.") is a search unless i use http:// before or / after it, so
don't even get as far as that odd resolver/caching behaviour.

If apple decide that they want to use "apple." for their main website
then let them, it won't work, but it won't cause problems for anyone
except themselves and their users. They will quickly realise what it
does and doesn't work for and adapt appropriately, so strict rules on
what is and isnot allowed because it may or may not work are probably
inappropriate, if it doesn't work they won't use it. I'm sure there
are some services where dotless domains could be used without issue,
just not browsers, or mail servers, or anything that might run on
windows and use the local resolver cache, but i'm sure there is
something.

- Mike