We are not using correct domain name examples, as per RFC 2606

[lizardo@…]

See ​http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2606

On "Creating the /etc/hosts file" section (Chapter 7), we use example /etc/host files and ask the user to change the dummy values with the correct ones. RFC 2606 recommends that, when writing documentation which uses dummy domain names as example, we use one of the following reserved domains:

example.com example.net example.org

The main reason is that "Confusion and conflict can be caused by the use of a current or future top level domain name in experimentation or testing, as an example in documentation,to indicate invalid names, or as a synonym for the loop back address."

Additionally, the same RFC describes the use of ".localhost" as loopback reserved TLD, but does not mention ".localdomain" anywhere. Although common in many network configuration files, the .localdomain TLD does not seem to be reserved for loopback purposes. For example, most of the ICANN mailing list messages (see ​http://www.google.com/search?q=localhost+site%3Aicann.org) show "localhost" being used as loopback TLD with a few occurrences (exact four) of the "localhost.localdomain" address.

In resume, my suggestions are:

• Substitute "mydomain.org" and "mydomain.com" with the proper "example.org" value;

• Substitute "localhost.localdomain" with "localdomain.localhost", IF this

change does not break anything.

[greg@…]

Sounds reasonable. But you say:

IF this change does not break anything.

Surely you've tested? Otherwise you're wasting people's time. Please test.

[lizardo@…]

Suggested changes for LFS-BOOK hosts.xml file

[lizardo@…]

Okay, I confess I did not test this at the first time.

Now, the results of my tests: remove the "localhost.localdomain" alltogether. I've tested here with only "127.0.0.1 localhost" and all seems to work fine. Also, I did some investigation to discover where exactly the LFS-BOOK started to use "127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost" instead of just "127.0.0.1 localhost" (as exemplified at ​http://www.tldp.org/LDP/nag2/x-087-2-iface.simple-resolv.html). It was on LFS-BOOK 2.3.6 (see ​http://archive.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs-museum/2.3.6/LFS-BOOK-2.3.6-HTML/x4075.html).

But no note on Changelog about the reason of the change, and I could not find

it on CVS (even on "Attic" directories). So, having no clear reasons about WHY we suddenly started using "localhost.localdomain", I suggest we remove it.

I've attached a patch with the suggested changes. Feel free to discuss this on lfs-dev before making the changes.

[greg@…]

Okay, I confess I did not test this at the first time.

We'll let you off this time :-)

I've applied your patch coz it looks correct to me. Thanks. Closing.