Try it out: Cannot access any sites with hypens in the subdomain.

StevenO · 01-22-2006, 10:41 PM

Hi guys,

I've noticed something very interesting in Linux. It seems that I cannot access any sites with hypens in subdomains. The host will not be found.

The site is not down. I can access it in Windows.

For eg: (they are examples)

http://-xxxx.blogspot.com or http://xxxx-.blogspot.com

Im on Slackware 10.2. I've ran kernel 2.4 and 2.6 on it. I've tried it out on Firefox and Konquerer browser but problem persists.

I was thinking it's some problems with blogspot host. But I cannot find any sites that have hypens in subdomains.

Anyone care to try this out? Or am I the only one having such problems?

(Or did I miss out any modules during kernel compilation?)

gilead · 01-22-2006, 11:33 PM

I'm not sure if it's ever changed, but hyphens at the start or end of hostnames is specifically disallowed in some RFCs (see http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc952.html and http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1034.txt). From the Assumptions section of RFC 952:

Quote:

The first character must be an alpha character. The last character must not be a minus sign or period.

Although your windows browser allows it, even microsoft at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...tl/nls_IDN.asp acknowledges in their docs for handling internationalized domain names that:

Quote:

The IDN_USE_STD3_ASCII_RULES flag used in several conversion functions allows applications to force those functions to fail if they encounter ASCII characters other than letters, numbers, or the hyphen-minus (or if the string begins or ends with the hyphen-minus). These have always been barred in domain names, and remain barred.

StevenO · 01-25-2006, 02:36 AM

Oh ok. Thanks.

Guess that explains it all.

In this case, I guess blogspot shouldn't allow users to register their site with hyphens in the first place.

StevenO · 01-31-2006, 01:47 AM

I've requested the owners to remove the hyphen from subdomains.

It works now. I can access their site via Linux...