KSpagnol@massey.ac.nz (Ken Spagnolo) (07/12/90)
I'm bringing up nameservers around the place and discovered the /etc/svcorder file on a DECstation 3100. In it you can list the order in which you want host name resolving methods to be tried. If I have in it "bind" followed by "local", sendmail, etc. will first consult named and, if that fails, look in /etc/hosts. This seems like nice flexability that most systems don't have. The Pryamid named man page says its "either or" based on the existence of /etc/nameserver. Is that the final word, or is there some other way of doing it? Thanx. -- Ken Spagnolo - Systems Programmer, Postmaster, Usenet Administrator, etc. Computer Centre, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand K.Spagnolo@massey.ac.nz Phone: +64-63-69099 x8587 New Zealand = GMT+12
csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) (07/12/90)
In article <847@massey.ac.nz> K.Spagnolo@massey.ac.nz (Ken Spagnolo) writes: >I'm bringing up nameservers around the place and discovered the >/etc/svcorder file on a DECstation 3100. In it you can list >the order in which you want host name resolving methods to be >tried.... The Pyramid named man page says its "either or" based on the >existence of /etc/nameserver. If /etc/nameserver does not exist, then gethostbyname(3N) and gethostbyaddr(3N) are resolved through /etc/hosts. If /etc/nameserver exists, then the resolver library (named) is tried first, and if that fails, then /etc/hosts is searched. Sendmail has two extra choices (neither of which is in the stupid man page): the OI option says that if the nameserver is selected but cannot be reached, do *not* fall back to /etc/hosts; instead, just queue the mail for later. This is quite important: otherwise, if the master nameserver is down, then all mail that wasn't in /etc/hosts would be returned as "no such host." The Ow option was added by Pyramid; if set, then the resolver will not assume a default domain, and requires that all addresses be worked out to FQDN's before the resolver is called. Setting this option is highly desirable, but doing so breaks nearly every sendmail.cf in existance. Berkeley made it a compile-time option; Pyramid made it runtime. <csg>