Why is a dot required at the end of machine names?

[Hugh Fader]

I am running a Sparcstation 1 using NIS (yellow pages) configured to work
with DNS. I have discovered some strange behavior.

When trying to connect to machines outside my Internet domain with ftp,
telnet, etc., I have to put a dot at the end of the machine name:

	slee01% ping sun.com
	ping: unknown host sun.com
	slee01% ping sun.com.
	sun.com is alive

Intermittently the terminal dot is not required. However, an nslookup of
the same host works with or without the dot. The Sun documentation says
the dot means it is a fully qualified as opposed to relative path name
with no further elaboration.

Is this behavior to be expected? Sun support says the problem is not with
my configuration.

Thanks in advance. 

Hugh Fader
hugh at slee01.srl.ford.com