Case sensitive

rjb37

Hi
I am studying for the 70-270 exam and I came across a practice question for a FQDN that had several parts to it, e.g. 1st and 2nd level along with the top domain and the rest.
Portions of this had capitals and the question was which parts were case sensitive. I got it wrong becasue I assumed that it was not case sensitive. According to the author it is.
I have not been able to find any references to this being case sensitive. Anyone out there seen this before. All the IT guys at work here have never heard of this.

royal

DNZ zones/domain names are not case sensitive. Try going to WwW.goOgLe.CoM. It'll work just fine.

jasonboche

Internet URLs used to be case sensitive in the old days. Not so much any more though. I haven't seen it in 5 or more years.

sprkymrk

Can you reference the book and page #? Maybe there's more to it than meets the eye. Otherwise you may want to provide feedback to the publisher so it can corrected in an addendum/eratta or future edition.

rkholmes

Greetings,

Apache on UNIX/Linux is case sensitive with the files it serves unless you have the Apache module called mod speling installed (yes I spelled the module name right..the author must have a sense of humor).

So unless the afore mentioned Apache module is installed

http://www.example.com/SoMeFiLe.html

would generate a 404 unless a file of that exact name and case was located within the directory specified to hold the content (usually /apache/htdocs OR /www/data).

I'm not sure about Apache on Windows but since the OSI model is transparent to the platform, I would imagine the same applies there.

To get this post back on track, to the best of my knowledge I don't think that DNS zones are case sensetive. Please refer to this example http://www.zytrax.com/books/dns/ch6/mydomain.html which does illustrate this. Granted there is a mixture of case used in the example, but note its consistency which I do believe is simply for housekeeping and consistency.

Toodles!


Rob[/b]

sprkymrk

rkholmes wrote:

Apache on UNIX/Linux is case sensitive with the files it serves unless you have the Apache module called mod speling installed (yes I spelled the module name right..the author must have a sense of humor).

So unless the afore mentioned Apache module is installed

http://www.example.com/SoMeFiLe.html

would generate a 404 unless a file of that exact name and case was located within the directory specified to hold the content (usually /apache/htdocs OR /www/data).

I'm not sure about Apache on Windows but since the OSI model is transparent to the platform, I would imagine the same applies there.

To get this post back on track, to the best of my knowledge I don't think that DNS zones are case sensetive. Please refer to this example http://www.zytrax.com/books/dns/ch6/mydomain.html which does illustrate this. Granted there is a mixture of case used in the example, but note its consistency which I do believe is simply for housekeeping and consistency.

Thanks for that information rkholmes. However, if I may ask you to elaborate, your example is for finding a specific file on a host. Is the actual FQDN (as opposed to the URL) case sensetive? If I went to the host www.ExampLe.com, would it make a difference? I know unix/linux (unlike Windows) are case sensetive in file naming conventions, which would explain why apache on those platforms would require a module to be installed.

rkholmes

From RFC 1035, Page 9

2.3.3. Character Case

For all parts of the DNS that are part of the official protocol, all
comparisons between character strings (e.g., labels, domain names, etc.)
are done in a case-insensitive manner. At present, this rule is in
force throughout the domain system without exception. However, future
additions beyond current usage may need to use the full binary octet
capabilities in names, so attempts to store domain names in 7-bit ASCII
or use of special bytes to terminate labels, etc., should be avoided.

This rule has yet to be superseded.

sprkymrk

rkholmes wrote:

From RFC 1035, Page 9

2.3.3. Character Case

For all parts of the DNS that are part of the official protocol, all
comparisons between character strings (e.g., labels, domain names, etc.)
are done in a case-insensitive manner. At present, this rule is in
force throughout the domain system without exception. However, future
additions beyond current usage may need to use the full binary octet
capabilities in names, so attempts to store domain names in 7-bit ASCII
or use of special bytes to terminate labels, etc., should be avoided.

This rule has yet to be superseded.

Nice find. It appears that the author of the book rjb37 is using was mistaken, unless he misinterpreted the question.

royal

Thanks for the information rkholmes. This is definitely good to know.