Christian Huitema wrote: >if an application tries to resolve >"host.local" through, say, gethostbyname, then the query will >indeed be forwarded to the local DNS service. The responsibility >for the ".local" traffic lies mostly into whoever is promoting use >of this top level domain and coding that use in applications. That would be Microsoft: <http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q296250&GSSNB=1> >The Domain Name System name recommendations for >Small Business Server 2000 and Windows Small Business Server 2003 >July 16, 2004 >Make the name a private domain name that is used for name resolution >on the internal Small Business Server network. This name is usually >configured with the first-level domain of .local. At the present >time, the .local domain name is not registered on the Internet. >The natural separation of internal and external networks >occurs because of the use of a separate internal namespace. >A client query generated from the Internet for www.contoso.local >does not return any valid domain information because .local, at >the present time, is not a registered domain name. >Name resolution problems that are created by using a publicly >registered domain name can be avoided by planning the private >namespace around a .local first-level domain so that, in this example, >Contoso.com and Contoso.local are both available to internal clients, >but Contoso.com is only available to external internet clients. A suspicious person might think that the reason Microsoft is trying to encourage its customers to use ".local" is a deliberate attempt to foster interoperability problems with machines running mDNS. I do not think that. I'm sure there must be a perfectly reasonable non-Machiavelian explanation for why Microsoft is advocating use of the ".local" DNS domain. I just don't know what it is right now. Stuart Cheshire <cheshire@xxxxxxxxx> * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer, Inc. * www.stuartcheshire.org _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf