Re: [idn] UTF-8 / RACE

[Mark.Andrews@nominum.com]

> The only BIND problem with UTF-8 is the gethostbyname() library, which
> rejects 8-bit characters in violation of RFC 2181.

	gethostbyname() is a client of the DNS and as such is not
	covered by RFC 2181.  gethostbyname() is part of a
	implementation of RFC 952.

	Yes we are talking here about extending RFC 952, however
	that does not imply that it is necessarily safe to extend
	gethostbyname().  The safest thing to do is to specify a
	new API which is defined to accept IHN and return IHN's.
	That way you don't break all the legacy applications when
	you upgrade your shared library.

	If you can extend a existing API, well and good, but it should
	require some action on the part of the application developer to
	get at the extended parts.

> Current versions of BIND support no-check-names in /etc/resolv.conf to
> fix this behavior.
	
	And when you do this you still get a ASCII string back.  Most
	applications don't look at it but it is there.

	Mark
--
Mark Andrews, Nominum Inc.
1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: Mark.Andrews@nominum.com