Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 15:43:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Barton <DougB@FreeBSD.org> To: Peter Wemm <peter@wemm.org> Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, <arch@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: Generating host.conf for backward compatibility Message-ID: <20011013153357.R40455-100000@master.gorean.org> In-Reply-To: <20011013221909.80C3A3810@overcee.netplex.com.au>
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On Sat, 13 Oct 2001, Peter Wemm wrote:
> Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote:
> > --=-=-=
> >
> > In our eagerness to switch from host.conf to nsswitch.conf, we forgot
> > that old binaries and libraries (COMPAT_* and tons of third-party
> > software for which sources might not even be available) still expect
> > to find /etc/host.conf, and may not work (correctly) if it doesn't
> > exist.
>
> I'm a bit puzzled as to why this makes a difference. The old libc resolver
> defaulted to "dns","files" if host.conf was missing. The file is and
> always was optional.
>
> Of course, that doesn't help you if you use a NIS hosts map, or if you're
> expecting /etc/hosts to override DNS lookups.
I know that when I was running -current before the recent stdio
changes made COMPAT4X mandatory, I used 4.x binaries without difficulty.
The two most notable examples are cvsup and Yahoo! messenger. Once I
installed the compat stuff those binaries stopped working. I haven't had a
chance to test Dag-Erling's theory yet, since I've still got ATA issues to
solve before I can move my workstation back to -current.
Here's an ugly thought.... what would happen if /etc/host.conf
existed, but its contents were missing or invalid? The more I think about
this.... I vaguely recall futzing around with /etc/host.conf around the
time of the nsswitch.conf change, and I may have left an empty file
hanging around to test some rc* stuff. If that's the case, I apologize if
this has been a waste of time... although it might be nice to build
something into libc that says "If the contents of
/etc/{host|nsswitch}.conf don't make any sense, fall back to the default."
Looking for somewhere to hide...
Doug
--
"We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail."
- George W. Bush, President of the United States
September 20, 2001
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