[ntpwg] [dhcwg] Re: Network Time Protocol (NTP) Options for DHCPv6

[Ted Lemon]

On Mon, 2007-11-19 at 09:07 -0500, Brian Utterback wrote:
> That having been said, I would like to see a way to pass a FQDN
> as an option, perhaps passing both. Then you could have logic
> like "Here's both, use the name if you can, and use the address if
> you must."

An option in a protocol that produces no different behavior is just an
opportunity for interoperability problems.

This is actually an old discussion.   Danny's position isn't unheard of,
but the fact is that there's really no way in which this option is
different from the other fifty options that tell DHCP clients how to
contact servers.

There's no reason why this option should use FQDNs while the other fifty
use IP addresses, and there are a number of good reasons not to send
FQDNs, the first and most obvious of which is that they take up more
space in the packet, and space in the packet is very limited.