Talk:Fully qualified domain name

message: I am not sure if "canonical name" is the same as and should be directed to "FQDN". I read that if one uses /etc/hosts, the first hostname on the list is considered as the canonical name. So, if the first name is a unqualified name, the canonical name is the unqualified name. It seems canonical is as opposed to aliases, and FQDN is opposed to unqualified name - they are two different concepts. That is, all the canonical and aliased names can be fully qualified, and also can be all unqualified. I read that "canonical name" is defined in RFC103.
- Ming Kin Lai
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.195.10.233 (talk • contribs) 2006-09-27T19:21:35
:I realize this is a very old comment, but a week or so ago, I finally fixed this so that canonical name now points to something more appropriate. Wrs1864 (talk) 10:12, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canonical name 

message: "Any binary string can be used as the label of any resource record; a common misconception is that names are limited to a subset of ASCII characters." according to RFC1035 sec. 2.3.1, in order to be backward compatible, one should use the "let-dig-hyp" characters only.
- Yuval  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.235.26.189 (talk) 09:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any binary string 

message: I have never heard mention of an 'absolute domain name', which we say is an alternative to 'fully qualified domain name' in the opening paragraph.  Can anyone say where they've heard this, or even better, cite a source?  —fudoreaper (talk) 08:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: RFC 1035 discusses absolute vs relative domain names. Wrs1864 (talk) 10:06, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

text: The term FQDN is certainly the standard technical term, but absolute is not uncommon. What I do object to is the use of the notion of 'unambiguity' in terms of domain names when they are fully qualified, or of 'ambiguity' when they are not. A relative domain name is not 'ambiguous', it simply can't be interpreted in multiple ways, since the choices are not given or implicitly known. The 'absoluteness' is the technically correct term, just as in absoluteness (vs. relative) of path names. A relative (non-absolute) pathname also is not ambiguous, it's just not complete. Kbrose (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Being able to be interpreted several different ways seems to me to be the very definition of "ambiguous".  Personally, I've heard seen far fewer references to "absolute" vs "relative" than I have FQDN vs unqualified.  I don't have a problem with using abs/rel, but I can see how they might be confusing to some people.  Wrs1864 (talk) 17:52, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, I would agree. See my PS addendum also Kbrose (talk) 18:02, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

text: I think this perceived 'requirement' of the final dot was introduced by people coming from the DNS only perspective, and indeed in DNS it is a requirement due the definition of structure in the 'standard' zone files, most notably implemented in BIND. Not all DNS implementations have this requirement, however. But for other protocols, such as SMTP, that by definition always use FQDNs, this is not true. Such ignorance leads to the confusion, caused primarily by the assertion that a FQDN always end in a dot in order to be technically correct. Again, the context of application is important. This notion has been copied from WP to many other 'definition' sources, it appears, without discrimination (or the early versions of WP were copied from somewhere else).  Kbrose (talk) 18:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

text: The article clearly needs more work to dispel the myths around this issue. Perhaps sections can be added for more detailed discussion of FQDNs vs. unqualified ones (UQDN?) in some prominent applications and protocols. Kbrose (talk) 18:32, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Absolute domain name 

message: The third paragraph states that "The FQDN therefore uniquely identifies the device".  For this example, this is true, but it is not universally true.  The FQDN may refer to a round-robin set of machines or even a name that has no specific machine associated with it; the key is that within the complete domain name system, it points to a specific node within the tree. Corydon76 (talk) 18:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This was already stated, and the statement is clearly within the context of the example. The formatting was poor, however, being spread out with too much whitespace. Kbrose (talk) 19:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unique device name 

message: If there is to be a trailing dot at the end of a sentence, that must be clearly defined by another method than only one dot.  Either use two, or use a separate box to display the example; ie.
somehost.example.com.
Was this what was actually meant? - KitchM (talk) 20:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I tried to implement your suggestion in a way so that the domain name with the trailing dot does not occur at the end of a sentence, which makes it difficult in any case for good typesetting. Kbrose (talk) 22:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trailing Dot 

message: How about an FQDN example? scope_creep (talk) 16:01, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps you should read the article, it has an example. Kbrose (talk) 15:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Example

message: My edit has been reverted by user tbhotch within several seconds (so he/she has not read the RFCs but just disliked the edit).
Text of my edit was: It seems that a significant part of this article is PLAIN WRONG. See RFC 1594 (Section 5.2) for Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). This RFC is cited by several other RFCs using the term FQDN. See RFC 1034 and RFC 1035 for absolute domain names (sometimes called complete domain names). The terms FQDN and absolute domain name are NOT synonyms.
Maybe someone with Wikipedia formatting skills can add a hint to the article. People rely on Wikipedia but information given in the article is PLAIN WRONG. I am a UNIX admin for nearly 20 years and I do read RFCs (which are the relevant source for internet related things by definition).
(I had added some asterisks to my original edit as I do not know how to format Wikipedia articles to emphasize that important information.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.128.50.110 (talk) 22:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Information given in this article does not conform to relevant RFCs

message: Googling suggests that PQDN is often discussed alongside FQDN, and there is a competent article at FQDN as compared to the totally unsourced dictionary definition at PQDN: it looks as if it would be better to add some description of PQDN to the FQDN article and redirect. PamD 22:47, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: AGAINST, I know what a PQDN is, I came here to see what a FQDN is INSTEAD of a PQDN merging them would remove the usefulness of that this article to that end.
--74.93.100.211 (talk) 00:25, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I ended this absurdity by a redirect. It simply is not a separate topic. Kbrose (talk) 02:09, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merge with [[PQDN]] 

message: Not sure the correct policy for this but wanted to let you know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHAb3Foa1Nw – I can't report the video because it doesn't infringe my rights, as I haven't contributed to the article. There are many other videos like this in that channel.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.20.177.141 (talk) 17:51, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyright infringement 

message: Hi all. It seems this article still contains misinformation. Rather than take up tons of space here, I have written up a lengthy explanation of why the trailing dot is not part of a FQDN.
In a nutshell, and as has been pointed out by other users on this very talk page, the dot is a lexical convention only used in DNS resource records and (rarely) to control the behavior of a resolver; it is not an inherent component of a FQDN. On my side are numerous quotations from RFCs 882, 1035, 1123, 1594, 1983, 2181, 2821, 2822, and 4703. Some of these same quotations have been taken out of context by previous editors of this Wikipedia article to support conflicting assertions about the trailing dot.
I also take issue with the references for "PQDN" and "relative domain name"; see my writeup for explanation.
Before I hack away at the article, I'd like to hear your comments/criticisms, either here or in my inbox. Thanks. —mjb (talk) 16:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Trailing dot is not part of FQDN