Network Working Group Jon Postel
Request for Comments: 897 ISI
February 1984
Updates: RFC 881
Domain Name System Implementation Schedule
Status of this Memo
This memo is a policy statement on the implementation of the Domain
Style Naming System in the Internet. This memo is a partial update
of RFC 881. This is an official policy statement of the ICCB and the
DARPA.
The intent of this memo is to detail the schedule for the
implementation for the Domain Style Naming System. The explanation
of how this system works is to be found in the references.
The Current Situation
Simple Names
Hosts in the ARPA research and DDN operational communities are
currently assigned names in a flat or global name space of
character strings. There are some limits on these names. They
must start with a letter, end with a letter or digit and have only
letters or digits or hyphen as interior characters. Case is not
significant.
For example: USC-ISIF
Tables
Every host in the Internet is expected to have a way of
translating the name of any other host into its Internet address.
By and large, the name to address translation is done by looking
up the information in a table of all hosts.
The maintenance of this table is centralized at the Network
Information Center (NIC). Each host is expected to obtain a
current copy of the table on a timely basis.
Interface to the World
A great deal of mail moves between the Internet and other
"systems" that somehow transport mail among computers. This is
currently done by hiding some sort of "other-system" addressing
information in the local-part of the mail address and using a
mail-relay host in the host-part of the mailbox.
Postel