https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1035#section-2.3.1 says (approximately)
that only letters, numbers, and non-leading non-trailing dashes are allowed
(for entries with A/AAAA records). We set no restrictions.
hosts(5) says:
> Host names may contain only alphanumeric characters, minus signs ("-"), and
> periods ("."). They must begin with an alphabetic character and end with an
> alphanumeric character.
nss-files follows those rules, and will ignore names in /etc/hosts that do not
follow this rule.
Let's follow the documented rules for /etc/hosts. In particular, this makes us
consitent with nss-files, reducing surprises for the user.
I'm pretty sure we should apply stricter filtering to names received over DNS
and LLMNR and MDNS, but it's a bigger project, because the rules differ
depepending on which level the label appears (rules for top-level names are
stricter), and this patch takes the minimalistic approach and only changes
behaviour for /etc/hosts.
Escape syntax is also disallowed in /etc/hosts, even if the resulting character
would be allowed. Other tools that parse /etc/hosts do not support this, and
there is no need to use it because no allowed characters benefit from escaping.
Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek
7470cc4c73