fully qualified domain name

networking (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 World-Wide 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.

See also network, the, network address.

(2003-09-23)