Derek Martin: >>> Red Hat has configured some of its software to use >>> "localhost.localdomain" (which I always thought was >>> brain-damaged) Tim: >> I can see why they've done something *like* that, as there's some >> networking things that will insist on there being at least one dot in >> the name, but I would have done it differently. Derek Martin: > Hmm... can you provide an example? I can't remember off the top of my head, but one mail client, at least, flatly refused to allow me to specify localhost as the mail server. You had to have at least one dot in the name before it'd let you continue on configuring the client. > And IMO you shouldn't... localhost is localhost -- it > isn't in a domain; that's the whole point. The entire 127.0.0.0/8 > network refers to your local machine. See RFC 2606: <http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2606.html> But note "traditional" and the warning off (which doesn't explicitly preclude it's use, that way). What is needed is a reserved domain name for local hosting of servers, "localhost" fits the description rather well, for picking a name for intuitive reasons. It doesn't necessarily have to me the same machine, just something that's local. > I'm inclined to think that software which requires a domain is broken. There's any number of things that want a FQDN, mail servers being the first thing that springs to mind. -- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
