INTERNET DRAFT EXPIRES SEPT 1998 INTERNET DRAFT R. Nelson INTERNET DRAFT Crynwr Software Updates: RFC 1178, 1035 Feb 1998 Category: Informational .ce Domain names for part-time Internet hosts Status of This Memo This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the "1id-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet- Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), ftp.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). Distribution of this document is unlimited. .ti 0 Observations Several large providers use subdomains for their dialups, but no subdomain is popular enough to be recognizable. This memo standardizes the names of Internet hosts which are not connected to the Internet at all times. One of the domains of these host's names should contain "dialup". Since there are several second-level names which match "dialup", the matching should start at the third-level name. A reasonable algorithm would be to search for "dialup", then expect to find two dots following that occurrance. A simple regular expression such as is used by the Unix search command might be "dialup.*\\..*\\.". The string "dialup" is chosen because it is not likely to be used in the name of any host which is not a dialup. It is also already in use by several large providers. This shows the current variety of dialup names chosen by various providers: .hil.compuserve.com .arl.compuserve.com .willowsprings.mci.net .voor.prodigy.net .ms.uu.net .da.uu.net .dial-access.att.net .dialup.canada.psi.net .pub-ip.psi.net .ipt.aol.com .us.ibm.net .dialup.earthlink.net .ti 0 Security Considerations .in 3 Dialup hosts are inherently less secure than full-time-connected hosts. Some sites may wish to deny certain services (e.g. SMTP) from part-time-connected hosts. This standard gives them a tool that scales. .ti 0 References .in 3 [1] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and specification", RFC 1035, November 1987 [2] Libes, D., "Choosing a Name for Your Computer", RFC 1178, September, 1990 .ti 0 Author's Address .nf Russell Nelson Crynwr Software 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. Potsdam, NY 13676 Phone: +1.315.268.1925 FAX: +1.315.268.9201 Email: nelson@crynwr.com INTERNET DRAFT EXPIRES SEPT 1998 INTERNET DRAFT