Re: what's the purpose of MAXHOSTNAMELEN?

[Samuel Thibault]

Jeff Garzik, le Tue 29 Dec 2009 14:40:05 -0500, a écrit :
> On 12/29/2009 02:19 PM, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> >arch/s390/include/asm/param.h:#define MAXHOSTNAMELEN	64	/* max 
> >length of hostname */
> >
> >   so lots of people define it but no one uses it.  it *is* exported to
> >user space in /usr/include/asm/param.h, but i still have no idea what
> >it's for in user space.  obsolete?
> 
> According to RFC 1034, "Each node has a label, which is zero to 63 
> octets in length"

That's for Internet networks.  Other kinds of networks could implement
more.  It could make sense to restrict ourself to Internet standards,
but we don't :)

> What is it used for in userspace, and why is it export from the kernel? 

Gethostname, typically, but also all kinds of functions that provide a
hostname.  It's also quite often completely badly used, for instance for
getnameinfo()...

You have Debian's list on
http://unstable.buildd.net/buildd/hurd-i386_Failed.html

Samuel
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