There is a Launchpad Bug (#668926) on the subject. A similar case (just the name starts with the hyphen).
Following the discussion the problem seems to be rooted in different levels of standards compliance.
Linux seems to follow strictly RFC 952:
A "name" (Net, Host, Gateway, or Domain name) is a text string up to
24 characters drawn from the alphabet (A-Z), digits (0-9), minus sign
(-), and period (.). Note that periods are only allowed when they
serve to delimit components of "domain style names". [...] No blank or
space characters are permitted as part of a name. No distinction is
made between upper and lower case. The first character must be an
alpha character. The last character must not be a minus sign or
period.
Whereas there are standards that are more relaxed about the domain naming conventions. In Comment #7 further RFCs are listed, that contain rules more loose than 952 (and some seem to contradict each other).
It's strange while you can nslookup
such names, you cannot ping
or wget
them.
The next surprising thing is if you add this host name to /etc/hosts/
you can ping
it, even browse the website. Add the following line to /etc/hosts
(sudo YOUR-FAVOURITE-TEXT-EDITOR /etc/hosts
, but be careful, create a backup first.):
199.15.160.100 fragmented---.deviantart.com
Now fire up your favourite browser and follow http://fragmented---.deviantart.com/.
curl http://fragmented---.deviantart.com/
as well