fully qualified domain name
domain name
FQDN
(FQDN) The full name of a system, consisting of
its local hostname and its domain name, including a
top-level domain (tld). For example, "venera" is a hostname
and "venera.isi.edu" is an FQDN. An FQDN should be sufficient
to determine a unique Internet address for any host on the
Internet. This process, called "name resolution", uses the
Domain Name System (DNS).
With the explosion of interest in the Internet following the
advent of the web, domain names (especially the
most significant two components, e.g. "sun.com", and
especially in the ".com" tld) have become a valuable part of
many companies' "brand". The allocation of these, overseen by
ICANN, has therefore become highly political and is
performed by a number of different registrars. There are
different registries for the different tlds.
A final dot on the end of a FQDN can be used to tell the DNS
that the name is fully qualified and so needs no extra
suffixes added, but it is not required.
See also network, the, network address.
(2005-06-09)
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