RFC 1034             Domain Concepts and Facilities        November 1987


HOSTMASTER@SRI-NIC.ARPA is represented as a domain name by
HOSTMASTER.SRI-NIC.ARPA.  An appreciation for the reasons behind this
design also must take into account the scheme for mail exchanges [RFC-
974].

The typical user is not concerned with defining these rules, but should
understand that they usually are the result of numerous compromises
between desires for upward compatibility with old usage, interactions
between different object definitions, and the inevitable urge to add new
features when defining the rules.  The way the DNS is used to support
some object is often more crucial than the restrictions inherent in the
DNS.

3.4. Example name space

The following figure shows a part of the current domain name space, and
is used in many examples in this RFC.  Note that the tree is a very
small subset of the actual name space.

                                   |
                                   |
             +---------------------+------------------+
             |                     |                  |
            MIL                   EDU                ARPA
             |                     |                  |
             |                     |                  |
       +-----+-----+               |     +------+-----+-----+
       |     |     |               |     |      |           |
      BRL  NOSC  DARPA             |  IN-ADDR  SRI-NIC     ACC
                                   |
       +--------+------------------+---------------+--------+
       |        |                  |               |        |
      UCI      MIT                 |              UDEL     YALE
                |                 ISI
                |                  |
            +---+---+              |
            |       |              |
           LCS  ACHILLES  +--+-----+-----+--------+
            |             |  |     |     |        |
            XX            A  C   VAXA  VENERA Mockapetris

In this example, the root domain has three immediate subdomains: MIL,
EDU, and ARPA.  The LCS.MIT.EDU domain has one immediate subdomain named
XX.LCS.MIT.EDU.  All of the leaves are also domains.

3.5. Preferred name syntax

The DNS specifications attempt to be as general as possible in the rules




 
RFC 1034             Domain Concepts and Facilities        November 1987


for constructing domain names.  The idea is that the name of any
existing object can be expressed as a domain name with minimal changes.
However, when assigning a domain name for an object, the prudent user
will select a name which satisfies both the rules of the domain system
and any existing rules for the object, whether these rules are published
or implied by existing programs.

For example, when naming a mail domain, the user should satisfy both the
rules of this memo and those in RFC-822.  When creating a new host name,
the old rules for HOSTS.TXT should be followed.  This avoids problems
when old software is converted to use domain names.

The following syntax will result in fewer problems with many
applications that use domain names (e.g., mail, TELNET).

 ::=  | " "

 ::=  |  "." 

 ::=  [ [  ]  ]

 ::= <let-dig-hyp> | <let-dig-hyp> 

<let-dig-hyp> ::=  | "-"

 ::=  | 

 ::= any one of the 52 alphabetic characters A through Z in
upper case and a through z in lower case

 ::= any one of the ten digits 0 through 9

Note that while upper and lower case letters are allowed in domain
names, no significance is attached to the case.  That is, two names with
the same spelling but different case are to be treated as if identical.

The labels must follow the rules for ARPANET host names.  They must
start with a letter, end with a letter or digit, and have as interior
characters only letters, digits, and hyphen.  There are also some
restrictions on the length.  Labels must be 63 characters or less.