This is a very dubious bug report... RFC 1035 says: s make up a large share of the data in the master file. The labels in the domain name are expressed as character strings and separated by dots. is expressed in one or two ways: as a contiguous set of characters without interior spaces, or as a string beginning with a " and ending with a ". This implies that "you"."can"."write"."domain"."names"."like"."this". BIND's zone file parser treats this as a syntax error. nsupdate treats quoted labels as if you wrote \" instead of ". Opinion: I think that allowing RFC 1035 quoted labels is liable to cause confusion, so BIND's master file parser probably does the sensible thing. Ideally nsupdate should parse RRs the same way. Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch http://dotat.at/ Shannon: Southeasterly becoming cyclonic 7 to severe gale 9, then westerly gale 8 to storm 10 later in far south. Moderate or rough, becoming very rough or high later in south. Rain or showers. Moderate, occasionally poor.