XPost: comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip   
   From: gah@ugcs.caltech.edu   
      
   In comp.protocols.tcp-ip Martijn Lievaart  wrote:   
   (snip)   
      
   < No, it's simple. There is DNS to map a name to an IP address. Multiple   
   < names can legitimately map to one IP address.   
      
   < Ping then uses reverse DNS to look up the name belonging to that IP   
   < adress and shows that name.   
      
   It could do that, but I believe more use the name returned when   
   the orignal name is a CNAME record.   
      
   < These mappings are completely unrelated, it's up to the admin to make   
   < sure that what reverse DNS returns, indeed is the canonical name for that   
   < machine, but if misconfigured, it might return a completely different   
   < name.   
      
   < To make it a bit more complex, it is completely legitimate to reverse map   
   < an IP address to multiple names. In fact, some argue that this was how   
   < DNS was envisioned. But don't do that, it probably confuses a lot of   
   < software and no one does it anyhow. Probably ping would still print the   
   < first name in the list of names it gets back for that IP address, but   
   < that is just guessing.   
      
   Better to have one official name with both A and PTR records,   
   all the other names CNAME to that name.  Even with more than one   
   A record, it works best to have only one PTR.   
      
   -- glen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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