On Tue, Sep 23, 2003 at 03:15:06PM -0700, David Schwartz wrote:
As for 'fsck.de', a good argument can be made that this is not really a legal domain.
It's a perfectly valid domain registered with DE-NIC. DE-NIC offers two types of domains: delegated and so-called "MX-only" domains, where up to five (IIRC) RRs reside directly in the TLD zone file. Do a whois lookup on whois.denic.de for fsck.de to see how this looks like.
It's a host. Checking for an SOA is a good way to tell if a domain is valid, depending upon what you mean by 'domain' and 'valid'.
Your definition of "domain" is too narrow. A "valid domain" in common context is a registered second level DNS label. It has no implication on what is technically being done with this label. Some NICs like DE-NIC impose restrictions upon registration though (domain has to be delegated to a working and configured set of NSses or be a "MX-only" domain). Regards, Daniel