Domain Name

The term domain name is used to refer to the name of a node in the domain namespace that identifies an object.

A domain name is a succession of one or more label separated by dots (known alas as the dot-atom form) that indicates the hierarchical structure (tree) of the namespace.

In a simplified way, a domain name looks like that:

[label][.apexLabel][.tldLabel].rootLabel

where:

• label is a string that starts with a letter
• apexLabel is the label that defines the apex domain name (known as the registrable domain)
• tldLable is the label of the top-level domain name
• rootLabel is the root label of the root which is the null character.

You can find the exact syntax at the end of this article as EBNF grammar

A name are two kind of format:

• a absolute - poneria.ISI.EDU.
• and a relative one - poneria

A complete/qualified domain name ends always with the root label of the namespace tree, and therefore the complete/qualified printed form ends with a dot.

An absolute domain name is more known as the fully qualified domain name (or FQDN)

For example, poneria.ISI.EDU.

A relative domain name represents the starting labels and should be completed by the local domain.

For example, “poneria” used in the ISI.EDU domain.

A relative name is also known as the short name

domain names can be written with arbitrary case, but domain name comparisons for all present domain functions are done in a case-insensitive manner

A node can be created with the label A or a, but they can't be sibling

The total number of octets that represent a domain name (i.e., the sum of all label octets and label lengths) is limited to 255.

A DNS name is an IP name stored in a DNS database. You will find the relative form in the first column of a DNS table.

In a DNS table, you would see:

NAME       TYPE   VALUE
--------------------------------------------------
bar        CNAME  foo.example.com.
foo        A      192.0.2.23

where

• name is a relative name (ie IP NAME)
• type is the type of a record such as cname, a, …

Network - Hosts File

The domain portion of an email address identifies the point (node) to which the mail should be delivered:

• either a host name
• or a mail exchanger name

The exact definition of a domain name is given in the Rfc1024 - Preferred Name Syntax)

domain ::= subdomain | " "
subdomain ::= label | subdomain "." label
label ::= letter ( ( ldh-str ) let-dig )
ldh-str ::= let-dig-hyp | let-dig-hyp ldh-str
let-dig-hyp ::= let-dig | "-"
let-dig ::= letter | digit
letter ::= [A-Za-z]*
digit ::= [0-9]*

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