domainname.
Is the fully qualified domain name
Domain names ending in a dot are absolute where as the ones not ending in a dot are relative.
There's a catch though... The stub resolver default behaviour is to consider a request for any domain with at least one dot in it as being a request for an absolute domain.
So what actually happens is:
- when you type
msn.com
in your browser your stub resolver will send a dns query formsn.com.
and then your browser will send a HTTP request to one of the IPs provided by the dns response - when you type
msn
the domain is considered relative to your resolver's search list (see the search directive in your /etc/resolv.conf). If the search list issearch foo.com bar.com
your stub resolver will send a dns query formsn.foo.com.
If that fails it will then send a dns query formsn.bar.com.
If one of the previous dns queries succeeded your browser will send a HTTP request to one of the IPs provided by the dns response.