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Host Name

What Does Host Name Mean?

A host name is a unique name or label assigned to any device that is connected to a specific computer network. It facilitates the differentiation of different machines or devices connected to the Internet, a network and/or both. Allotted and assigned host names are based on the naming system used.

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A host name is also known as a hostname.

Techopedia Explains Host Name

A host name may be alphabetic or alphanumeric and include limited symbols that are specifically used to identify a particular network node or device. Depending on the naming system in use, a host name’s syntax and requirement vary. For example, when used in the Domain Name System (DNS) or for the Internet, a host name must include the top level domain name (TLD) and have a length between one and 63 characters.

The Internet Engineering and Taskforce (IETF) published specification RFC 1123, which allows numbers at the beginning of a host name. However, no symbols, with the exception of the hyphen, are allowed.

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