[dns-operations] Why are cnames called "canonical" names?

[Paul Vixie]

Mark E. Jeftovic wrote:
> Thanks but that page doesn't go into why the term "canonical" was
> adopted, as opposed to "alias" (which makes sense), or even "knickname",
> "doppelganger" or something like "pointer".

the rrtype describes the rdata, which contains the canonical name of a
resource. the owner of a cname is an alias.

-- 
Paul Vixie