RFC 810 (rfc810) - Page 1 of 8
DoD Internet host table specification
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Elizabeth Feinler RFC 810 Ken Harrenstien 1 March 1982 Zaw-Sing Su References: RFC 811, 796 Vic White Obsoletes: RFC 608 Network Information Center SRI International DoD INTERNET HOST TABLE SPECIFICATION INTRODUCTION The ARPANET Official Network Host Table, as outlined in RFC 608, no longer suits the needs of the DoD community, nor does it follow a format suitable for internetting. This paper specifies a new host table format applicable to both ARPANET and Internet needs. In addition to host name to host address translation and selected protocol information, we have also included network and gateway name to address correspondence, and host operating system information. This Host Table is utilized by the DoD Host Name Server maintained by the ARPANET Network Information Center (NIC) on behalf of the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) (RFC 811). It obsoletes the host table described in RFC 608. LOCATION OF THE STANDARD DoD ONLINE HOST TABLE A machine-translatable ASCII text version of the new DoD Host Table is online in the fileHOSTS.TXT on the SRI-NIC host. It can be obtained by connecting to host SRI-NIC (10.0.0.73) from your local FTP server, logging in as user=ANONYMOUS, password=GUEST, and doing a 'get' on HOSTS.TXT. The same table may also be obtained via the NIC Host Name Server. NOTE: See Appendix A. for timeframe for cutover. ASSUMPTIONS 1. A "name" (Net, Host, Gateway, or Domain name) is a text string up to 24 characters drawn from the alphabet (A-Z), digits (0-9), and the minus sign (-) and period (.). No blank or space characters are permitted as part of a name. No distinction is made between upper and lower case. The first character must be a letter. The last character must not be a minus sign or period. A host which serves as a GATEWAY should have "-GATEWAY" or "-GW" as part of its name. A host which is a TIP or a TAC should have "-TIP" or "-TAC" as part of its host name, if it is an ARPANET or DoD host. 2. Internet Addresses are 32-bit addresses (RFC 796). In the host table described herein each address is represented by four decimal numbers separated by a period. Each decimal number represents 1 octet.



