On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 5:53 PM, Samuel Sieb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 11/04/2016 02:40 PM, Michael B Allen wrote: >> >> I don't think this was a MS thing. I recall .local being used a >> loooong time ago. It used to be that .local was absolutely the >> recommended method for small private networks. From googling around it >> seems there is a lot of nonsense about using .local versus using a >> subdomain. The only decent reason I can think of for not using .local >> is if you want to get SSL certs for intranet hosts in which case using >> .local would not be appropriate and it seems recently CAs will no >> longer issue certs for made-up TLDs. Otherwise, it looks like Apple >> just highjacked .local for mDNS. >> > That's a pretty strong statement. That's like saying IETF highjacked port > 22 for ssh because I always used that port to run my own application. > .local was never a registered TLD, so there was just some common usage of > it. And yes, MS did apparently recommend it at one time. But until this > email thread, I didn't know of anyone still using it.
Do you know for sure if mDNS predated .local or visa versa?? Disclaimer - this is all wild speculation. But think about it - why did Apple need mDNS? They needed mDNS so that OSX (and later iPhones and iPads) could find your home printer over the wireless router even if the printer IP changed. The wireless routers use .local. I know for a fact the Verizon ones do and have for a long time. So *maybe* Apple just hardcoded .local into their code to handle 99% of the Apple user-base and didn't think about the small private networks using real DNS and .local. If I had to *guess*, I would say that mDNS was introduced with OSX which was maybe 2001? Did wireless routers use .local before that? Did the old WRT54G use .local? That was maybe 2002. Mike _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
