On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Sam Varshavchik wrote: > Jon Nelson writes: > > > queries. The problem here, of course, is that names like 'localhost' > > and 'localhost.localdomain' do not resolve. What I'm trying to > > understand, MrSam, is the rationale for doing things this way? > > A couple of reasons: > > A) IPv6 (not implemented in the legacy resolver routines) > B) The resolver routines must do more than just address lookups, namely > MX and PTR records. > > And, it's not clear to me what's the issue with couriertls not resolving > stuff from /etc/hosts. All that means is that the IP address's hostname > won't get picked up. Big deal.
Well, 'localhost', for one, won't ever work properly. Secondly, /etc/hosts is there specifically to provide a "static table of host names". So, from your perspective, everybody must either run their own nameserver, or never use localhost, right? Additionally, it's clear that couriertls was originally designed to only be used "within" courier (rather than by users), because if it wasn't, one would probably pre-suppose that /etc/hosts would be utilized. Since couriertls *is* useful outside of the context of an smtp server, however, users will want to (and do) use it for more general purpose I/O that involves SSL/TLS. Users will therefore expect it to behave "just like every other program on unix that does name resolution" which, in this context, means consulting /etc/hosts. By the other message posted today, somebody else ran into problems because the actual behavior differed from the expected behavior. I'm not saying that the expected behavior in all cases is the right behavior, but I feel I can make a case for this particular change: the rfc1035 support routines should consult /etc/hosts (first) -- Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is two wolves attempting to have a sheep for dinner and finding a well-informed, well-armed sheep. Jon Nelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> C and Python Code Gardener ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ _______________________________________________ courier-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/courier-users
