[SWLUG] selecting a DNS domain

[Dave Cridland [Home]]

On Fri, 2003-05-02 at 10:13, Tim Bonnell wrote:
> I've wanted to set up a DNS name server on my server at home for a while
> now. I've even read the HOWTOs and tested it (sucessfully!). However I
> always bottle out on the issue of a specifying a domain name.
> 
> I know I need to use a domain that WONT conflict with the outside world, but
> everything I come up with a) looks unbelievable (e.g. home.bogus) or b) is
> excessively long (e.g. server1.internal.mydomain.co.uk)
> 
> What do other people use?

There have been a total of two IETF drafts on the issue, each specifying
different top levels, and in addition, Microsoft has also recommended
one.

Microsoft recommend ".local", which is clearly not globally scoped, and
therefore perfectly sensible.

One IETF draft recommends ".pri", which is, to me, less good, since
"pri" is not immediately recognisable, especially by non-native speakers
of English. (This draft was partly written by Microsoft, incidentally.)

Another recommends ".private.arpa", which is a bit of a mouthful.

I'd personally go for ".local", and not anything else. It means anyone
seeing it in an audit trail, such as mail headers, referer logs, etc, is
likely to recognise it as being locally scoped DNS space. I do hate
agreeing with Microsoft here, but they're right for once, I think.

Dave.