scs@iti.org (Steve Simmons) (02/15/90)
Over the years I've noticed that most folks set the hostname to the fully qualified domain name. We've always made them simple hostnames, then relied on proper sendmail.cfs, etc, to add our domain as appropriate. Recently we've bumped into some vendor software bugs for which the workaround is to make hostname == FQDN. The vendor agrees their performance isn't correct, but we're not likely to see a real fix in the next couple of days. We're loathe to do things different on 'just one machine', and would prefer consistancy. I'm interested in any and all comments on why or why not to set hostname to FQDN.
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (02/15/90)
Fully qualified domain names in the hostname is generally 4.3 behavior, as opposed to 4.2 which only had the first part. Biggest hassle is that when you have names as long as ours, e.g. dirichlet.math.lsa.umich.edu -- it's a hassle to have csh prompts with the full name in it. Also you'll tickle some bugs in some vendors software (e.g. SunOS 4.0.3 lockd) where they have buffers of less than MAXDNAME (arpa/nameser.h) to hold hostnames. The csh business is fixable for new users but it's harder to try to retrofit old users stuff piecemeal. Which bugs are you running into -- I might be seeing the same ones.... --Ed
avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) (02/15/90)
The fact is, the fully qualified domain name *is* the hostname. Shortcuts are allowed in that using bind an unqualified hostname will be resolved by assuming your domain name be attached, so for example, if I am on host gildor.dco.dec.com and I type telnet winsrf it will do the same thing as if I typed telnet winsrf.dco.dec.com If that failed it'd try winsrf.dec.com Similarly for mail. When you set up your prompt, if that is your only concern, do something like: set prompt="`hostname|sed 's/\..*//'`> " Fred
sverre@fesk.seri.gov (Sverre Froyen) (02/15/90)
emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes: >Fully qualified domain names in the hostname is generally 4.3 >behavior, as opposed to 4.2 which only had the first part. Does the 4.3 uucp support FQDN properly? After changing all our Suns to FQDN hostnames I found that uucp would not work. (The reason I changed was because the Sun documentation said so. -:( ) Sverre -- Sverre Froyen INTERNET: sverre@fesk.seri.gov UUCP: boulder!fesk!sverre, sunpeaks!seri!fesk!sverre BITNET: froyen@csugold.bitnet
chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) (02/15/90)
In article <2929@decuac.DEC.COM> avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) writes: >The fact is, the fully qualified domain name *is* the hostname. Fred is right, as usual. The reason you should set your host name to your FQDN is the same as the reason you should write your own full name on any form letter or credit-card application or survey or whatever. Your first name or your last name *might* be good enough; if you have a small community it probably *will* be good enough; but it is not your full name. I set my prompt with set hostname=`hostname | sed -e 's/\..*//'` ... set prompt="[$hostname\!] " and use $hostname whenever I want the abbreviated form. -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@cs.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) (02/16/90)
In article <22554@mimsy.umd.edu> chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) writes: > In article <2929@decuac.DEC.COM> avolio@decuac.dec.com (Frederick M. Avolio) > writes: > >The fact is, the fully qualified domain name *is* the hostname. > > The reason you should set your host name to your FQDN is the same as > the reason you should write your own full name on any form letter or > credit-card application or survey or whatever. It is worth noting that when you do change from simple to fully qualified name, that you will have to modify your sendmail.cf file, your news setup and other things that make use of your host name and assume that somehow they should combine the `hostname` plus some kind of domain information to create and "external" host name. Yeah, /etc/exports and the like also. Ancient versions of Ultrix uucp will puke and die given a hostname that returns move than ~8 characters and don't understand that a dot is of some significance. It isn't to hard to patch in a hard-coded host name, but you gotta do it in half-a-dozen places. You can generally create aliases either thru /etc/hosts or nameservers that allow the humans to specify the traditional local part or the fully qualified name... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing: domain: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com Commodore, Engineering Department phone: 215-431-9349 (only by moonlite)
grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu (Dirk Grunwald) (02/16/90)
One thing to worry about arised here at CU. the `local convention' is to use simple host name, not FQHN. My DECstation DNS wanted host name entries in .rhosts to be the FQHN version; the local suns (using static host tables) want `the hostname'. Thus, my .rhosts file has foobar.Colorado.EDU grunwald foobar grunwald anchor.Colorado.EDU grunwald anchor grunwald to allow it to be shared between /etc/hosts and DNS groking clients. If the local convention is FQHN, then this would not be needed, and I'd just use the FQHN. Oh well. Dirk Grunwald -- Univ. of Colorado at Boulder (grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu) (grunwald@boulder.colorado.edu)
saus@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Mark Sausville) (02/22/90)
There are host of bugs in Ultrix which caused by inconsistent uses
and assumptions about hostnames. Many seem indeed to be caused
by insufficient buffer space to hold the fully qualified domain
name.
One I ran across the other day was in /etc/dms. The line
SERVER=`/usr/ucb/netstat -i |grep $device |egrep -v "af12|DECnet" | awk '{print $4}'`
is used during some checks which figure out what network the client
and server share.
<#6 hub:/u/saus>netstat -i
Name Mtu Network Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Coll
scs0 8444 amt-hsc ci-hub.media.mi 787619 0 784094 0 0
ni0 1500 amt-net hub.media.mit.e 19501287 0 23738036 0 0
xna0 1500 amt-garden2 exahub.media.mi 91730 0 142740 0 0
lo0 1536 127 LOCALHOST 62 0 62 0 0
/usr/ucb/netstat -i doesn't have enough room to print the whole
hostname in it's 4th field so /etc/dms reports that the host can't be
found on the net because it checks using a truncated version of the
domain name. Very annoying.
My workaround was to fish out the host part of the domain name and use
that for the check. Not guaranteed to work under all circumstances
(such as a real long hostname (i.e.
asdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdf.foo.com).
It's ironic because there's a lot of code dedicated to seeing that
things are done properly and then there's this really gross bug.
It would be nice if this sort of problem just went away sometime soon.
Regards,
Mark.
Mark Sausville MIT Media Laboratory
Computer Systems Administrator Room E15-354
617-253-0325 20 Ames Street
saus@media-lab.media.mit.edu Cambridge, MA 02139