System. Redhat-7.3-x86. Using wildcard DNS. Vhost entry <VirtualHost 10.5.3.18> DocumentRoot /var/www/html/thorpe_cms ServerName thorpe_cms.ratbox.ops.au.XXX.com ServerAlias thorpe_cms.ratbox php_value include_path .:/var/www/html/thorpe_cms/lib:/var/www/i7lib </VirtualHost> I foolishly used an underscore in the ServerName parameter which had me beating my head against a brink wall as IE was giving mr grief about session cookies. This wasn't picked up by bind because of the wildcard DNS. Should apache check that the DNS name passes some basic checks? I appreciate that the rules around DNS are complex but perhaps a few basic checks might help out brain dead people like myself who forgot about the underscore rule.
That's funny. You should really search the old bug database for all the complaints from people saying we SHOULD accept hostnames with underscores. (In 1.3 we used to reject these outright.) Anyway, I think apache is being "lenient in what it accepts" here, and I see no particular reason to change it. I'd vote "WONTFIX" on this one, but I'll leave it open to see if anyone disagrees.
Agreed. Especially in experimental and /or local environments it can be *very* annoying if one has to patch the source in order to simply use one or another character that is not defined (yet!).