Hey There, It depends on the settings in the /etc/host.conf file Mine is set to "order hosts, bind" which means that processes running local on my linux box will try to resolve hostnames and aliases (i.e. mycomputer.mydomain.com as a host name or just plain mycomputer as an alias) to ip addresses.
If it cannot resolve the name from the /etc/hosts file, then it will try to resolve the name using a name server (DNS Server, a.k.a named, a.k.a BIND). It will use the settings in /etc/resolv.conf to find a primary or secondary DNS server. These should point to your ISP, if you don't have a DNS server or if your only using your local DNS server as a caching server. What are the contents of these files??? /etc/hosts /etc/host.conf /etc/resolv.conf /etc/sysconfig/network /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Julian Opificius Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 8:46 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: questions about named and sendmail Hi Gary, hope you can clarify this for me ... At 10:18 PM 1/3/02 -0600, you wrote: >On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 03:57:17PM -0600 or thereabouts, Julian Opificius >wrote: > > Using RH 7.2, KDE - new install. > > > 2) I don't think my named daemon is doing anything. I have a valid hosts > > file, but my windows clients - who are pointed at the linux box - can't > > resolve LAN names that are in the /etc/hosts file. The daemon is running. > > Is there a test method I can use? > >Hi Julian, A /etc/hosts file is not a named daemon. That much I knew ... it's a data file containing links between IPs and friendly names. But who uses it? > It will not resolve >name and address, only DNS does that, i.e. BIND. Right, but somebody uses the info in /etc/hosts, don't they? I thought (don't ask me where I got this idea) that bind (ie.named) looked in /etc/hosts first before going to an upstream DNS server. > The Hosts file will go >by IP addresses only, and not names/aliases.. Don't know what you mean by that. Is the "hosts" file only looked at by the machine upon which it resides, then? >This is more of a local >protocol on a small network, versus a DNS daemon, which is more global >going out onto the net, and working with several networks, and subnets. >This provides for reverse name and address lookup, with SOA's (start of >authority) records, etc... Now BIND will set up a local resolver and use >hosts, but it just looks there first anyway... it is easier just to use >hosts for a small network by IP instead of name and address resolution.. >The only difference instead of saying "Bob's box", you have to punch out >some octets.. <g> So who is it that looks at /etc/hosts then? Help me out here ... There's the DNS service, implemented by the application called bind, whose daemon is called "named", right? I know what that does, SOAs, A records, etc. It keeps a local, dynamic cache file with data that is aged according to instructions from the upstream server. It's just that I thought it also looked at the host file for local static info first. Who uses /etc/resolv.conf? Another daemon? Basically, how does a machine on the LAN get resolution to an IP from a friendly name for a) another machine on the LAN, and b) a machine somewhere out on the Internet ? Maybe if you could also tell me where WINS fits into all this, that would help a lot too! Please clear this up for me :-) julian. ====================== >-- >Best regards, >Gary > > > >_______________________________________________ >Redhat-list mailing list >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list ============================== Julian A. Opificius. 802 Fawn Road, Elk River, MN 55330. Home: 763.441.1291, Cell: 763.360.5919 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICQ: 3268206 ============================== _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
