bschmidt@bnr.ca (Ben Schmidt (BNR)) (03/07/91)
How do you tell MacTCP, **from the Hosts file***, what domain is to be considered the *default* domain. I.E. If you try and resolve the address of "Host A", *without* a period at the end, MacTCP should tack on a *default* domain, and try to resolve that. From the MacTCP control panel it's straightforward. There's a radio button you can press next to the namserver entry you want to be considered as the *default* domain. But how can you get the effect of this radio button for an entry in the "Hosts" file? We appreciate Apple's efforts to allow us to lock MacTCP so users can't shoot themselves or others in the foot by inadvertently altering their MacTCP drivers to duplicate IP addresses. But with MacTCP locked, we'd like to distribute DNS nameserver locations by just having our users drop a Hosts file into their System Folders. The downside appears to be that, while the Hosts file works, the users lose the ability to have a default domain. They must type all host names in their MacTCP-based applications as: "Host.domain", rather than "Host". Is there some flag one can use in the Host file to mark a domain as default? Ben Schmidt Bell-Northern Research, Ltd. Ph: (613) 763-3906 Information P.O. Box 3511, Station C FAX:(613) 763-3283 Technology Ottawa Canada K1Y 4H7 bschmidt@bnr.ca
bschmidt@bnr.ca (Ben Schmidt (BNR)) (03/08/91)
In article <1991Mar6.161545.18386@bwdls61.bnr.ca> bschmidt@bnr.ca (Ben Schmidt (BNR)) writes: > How do you tell MacTCP, **from the Hosts file***, what domain is to be > considered the *default* domain. I received a suggestion to try the $ORIGIN control entry, as defined in RFC 1035, Domain Implementation and Specification. Unfortunately the $ORIGIN command only defines the relative origin *in the Hosts file" for MacTCP. In effect, it's a typing aid which allows you to avoid typing fully qualified host names in any "A" records which follow. It does *not* define a default domain for the MacTCP DNS resolver. What I want is for the resolver stub in MacTCP to automatically append a default domain to host names (not fully qualified). This is exactly what it does now when you use the radio button marked "Default" from the Control Panel. Problem is we've used Apple's AdminTCP program to lock our users out of the MacTCP control panel settings, thus solving inadvertent duplicate IP addresses and other IP misconfigurations on our internet. On a UNIX system, there's a file called "etc/resolv.conf" which has a line such as "domain ott.bnr.ca" which specifies the default domain to append to unqualified host names. I need something like this for MacTCP's Host file. Then everything is a piece of cake. User's drop in a simple Host file, which they pull off AppleShare, into their System Folder for their site. It's pre-configured with their buidling's primary and secondary DNS servers, as well as their default domain, etc. No need even to re-boot! No need to touch the control panel interface to MacTCP (which we've locked them out of anyway using AdminTCP). Updates to DNS server locations, etc, are equally easy to handle. Without this I'm faced with either: - giving out MacTCP unconfigured and having 1000's of Mac users create a mess of duplicate IP addresses, inoperative configurations, etc., but at least they can enter a DNS server and a default domain through the MacTCP control panel interface. or - individually configuring 2500 MacTCP's through the control panel, and then locking them again with AdminTCP. And then repeating for any changes in DNS servers. (With 29 buildings in this city alone, and 5 other sites spread over 2 continents, this happens more often than I'd like. :-) Anyone have any contacts at Apple? Or where do you mail a MacTCP feature request? :-) Ben Schmidt Bell-Northern Research, Ltd. Ph: (613) 763-3906 Information P.O. Box 3511, Station C FAX:(613) 763-3283 Technology Ottawa Canada K1Y 4H7 bschmidt@bnr.ca