Question

I need to store the machine name in a database field, so I need to know how big to make the field.

So is there a limit on the length of a machine name?

If so what is the limit?

Can I machine name be Unicode?

Answer 1

This KB article says 255 bytes for the FQDN and it does support Unicode.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909264

DNS domain names

The maximum length of the host name
and of the fully qualified domain name
(FQDN) is 63 octets per label and 255
bytes per FQDN. This maximum includes
254 bytes for the FQDN and one byte
for the ending dot.

In Windows 2000 and in Windows Server
2003, the maximum host name and the
FQDN use the standard length
limitations that are mentioned
earlier, with the addition of UTF-8
(Unicode) support. Because some UTF-8
characters exceed one octet in length,
you cannot determine the size by
counting the characters.