On 4/2/07, Paul Lussier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The 'search localdomain' doesn't look right to me. What is acting as
your DHCP server?
>
> I think that's just the default domainname you get. The firewall should
> be handling the name service (he said it had two IPs for that).
Strange. I run dhclient on my system, and it gets the DNS info my
router grabs from Comcast and populates /etc/resolv.conf for me, no
localdomain cruft.
Well, sure. But that doesn't mean that's the only way, or even "the
right way". Indeed, I'm not sure there is a "right way" that works
everywhere and for everybody.
DHCP servers can provide a parent domain and/or a hostname. I know
Comcast hands out a domain name; I dunno about the hostname. Some
networks do hand out both. What the DHCP client does with those is up
to the client implementation.
One thing the client can do is (re)configure its hostname and domain
search path to match those provided. That is, apparently, what Fedora
Core 6 does by default, as this weekend, all our newly-installed MyhTV
boxes got configured with hostnames like "nhti-11-123" or whatever.
That does make the box appear in the network namespace seamlessly, but
also makes for some pretty ugly hostnames.
It gets even more interesting when you add in a router which is a
DHCP client on the upstream side, but a DHCP server on the LAN side.
It could pass the domain and hostnames on from the provider -- and
many do -- but those aren't necessary appropriate for the LAN.
For example, on my home LAN, I've got my router configured to hand
out "bscott.local" as the domain name, and to use "bscott-gw" as the
hostname for the router. I've also got my main PC manually configured
with "blackfire" as the hostname and "bscott.local" as the default
domain name, with "blackfire.bscott.local" in /etc/hosts with a static
IP address. My DNS search path is just "bscott.local", and 10.0.0.1
(my router) as my nameserver. That's all valid on my LAN. Probably
not valid anywhere else. :)
I don't see any advantage to using some ".comcast.net" domain name
on my home LAN. It don't control that zone, so I wouldn't be able to
put "blackfire" and "wildfire" and "tivo" and so on in there. Or I
could claim authority for the zone, and not be able to resolve any
"real" domain names in the local area. So, for me, the right think is
to invent my own namespace for my own LAN. At the same time, my
router's public interface isn't on my LAN, but *does* match the
forward and reverse which Comcast provides, so that makes sense for
the public interface of the router.
As for the original post, I can think of several possible scenarios.
Maybe his provider isn't handing out a domain name. Maybe his router
isn't passing it along to his PC. Maybe his router is configured at
the factory to hand out "localdomain" on the LAN side. Maybe he
configured it to do so explicitly. Maybe his router isn't handing out
*any* domain name, and so Fedora is filling in a default (I don't know
if that's how Fedora works, but it sounds plausible). None of those
are necessarily a problem, although they could be, depending on
details.
I can't help but think is DNS config is not optimal ...
What is "optimal", then? :)
-- Ben
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