Subject: RE: Last Call: 'Linklocal Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR)' to Proposed Standard

From: Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 16:56:05 -0700

Christian Huitema wrote:

>if an application tries to resolve
>"host.local" through, say, gethostbyname, then the query will
>indeed be forwarded to the local DNS service. The responsibility
>for the ".local" traffic lies mostly into whoever is promoting use
>of this top level domain and coding that use in applications.

That would be Microsoft:

<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q296250&GSSNB=1>

>The Domain Name System name recommendations for
>Small Business Server 2000 and Windows Small Business Server 2003

>July 16, 2004

>Make the name a private domain name that is used for name resolution
>on the internal Small Business Server network. This name is usually
>configured with the first-level domain of .local. At the present
>time, the .local domain name is not registered on the Internet.

>The natural separation of internal and external networks
>occurs because of the use of a separate internal namespace.
>A client query generated from the Internet for www.contoso.local
>does not return any valid domain information because .local, at
>the present time, is not a registered domain name.

>Name resolution problems that are created by using a publicly
>registered domain name can be avoided by planning the private
>namespace around a .local first-level domain so that, in this example,
>Contoso.com and Contoso.local are both available to internal clients,
>but Contoso.com is only available to external internet clients.

A suspicious person might think that the reason Microsoft is trying
to encourage its customers to use ".local" is a deliberate attempt
to foster interoperability problems with machines running mDNS.
I do not think that. I'm sure there must be a perfectly reasonable
non-Machiavelian explanation for why Microsoft is advocating use of
the ".local" DNS domain. I just don't know what it is right now.

Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
 * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer, Inc.
 * www.stuartcheshire.org

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