Dotted-decimal host names

Dotted decimal IPs is one the various good ideas that D. J. Bernstein has come up with that really ought to be more widely implemented.

The idea is this: A number of people equate a dotted decimal quad, such as "10.1.2.3", with a numeric IP. However, since DNS stores hostnames in a format that does not necessarily equate a dotted decimal quad with an IP, both MaraDNS and the dnscache program included with DjbDNS convert dotted decimal quads in to the appropriate IP address.

In more detail, when MaraDNS receives an A or an "all records" (255) request for a dotted decimal quad, MaraDNS does the following:

• MaraDNS determines if there is a hostname in the IP lookup table with the name of the quad in question. If so it returns that value.
• If not, then MaraDNS will synthesize an A record, without any records in the authority or additional section, which it gives as a reply to the query in question.

This way, dotted decimal quads will do what the end user or system administrator expects them to do--point to an IP with the same value as the dotted-decimal quad in question.