From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Nov 7 16:03:19 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 23FA616A4CE for ; Sun, 7 Nov 2004 16:03:19 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail6.speakeasy.net (mail6.speakeasy.net [216.254.0.206]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DAD3A43D45 for ; Sun, 7 Nov 2004 16:03:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: (qmail 16517 invoked from network); 7 Nov 2004 16:03:15 -0000 Received: from dsl092-078-145.bos1.dsl.speakeasy.net (HELO be-well.ilk.org) ([66.92.78.145]) (envelope-sender ) by mail6.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 7 Nov 2004 16:03:15 -0000 Received: by be-well.ilk.org (Postfix, from userid 1147) id 2B9A311; Sun, 7 Nov 2004 11:03:15 -0500 (EST) Sender: lowell@be-well.ilk.org To: Lloyd Hayes References: <418A53E5.40404@yahoo.com> <44mzxu6g00.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> <418DC569.2060106@yahoo.com> From: Lowell Gilbert Date: 07 Nov 2004 11:03:15 -0500 In-Reply-To: <418DC569.2060106@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44pt2p63zw.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> Lines: 61 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Naming confusion X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 16:03:19 -0000 Lloyd Hayes writes: > >don't worry about it. > > With XFree86, it is an issue. > It appears that Xorg won't configure correctly without it. Although I > won't swear that's the problem with Xorg. If you describe the actual symptoms you're seeing, someone might be able to help. > >Unless you're trying to have someone outside reach your machine (as > opposed to vice versa), you might as well just use whatever name the > ISP you're currently connected to tries to give you. > > Uhhhh, The computer with FBSD on it has not been connected to the > Internet since last winter, when it had Win 98SE on it. I'm a truck > driver who carries two computers in the truck with me, and seem to be > collecting more older computers at home in Wyoming. In the truck, I > always have one computer turned on. I get my loads over the Internet, > get most of my news over the Internet, keep truck records, do my legal > logbook, and keep in touch with my daughters who live in Europe, and > learn about FreeBSD all with a laptop computer. The fact of the matter > is that I can not even work without a working computer. I can't even tell from that paragraph whether you want the FreeBSD machine to be Internet-connected or not. If you don't, then just pick any old name for the machine (preferably with a non-existent top-level domain), stick that name into rc.conf as 'hostname', and add it to /etc/hosts as well (for 127.0.0.1). E.g., rc.conf could have hostname="lloyd-freebsd.private" and hosts could have 127.0.0.1 localhost lloyd-freebsd.private > Since many of the processes running on FreeBSD require a 'named' > computer, I need to know how to handle this. Otherwise, as it says in > "The Complete FreeBSD" book, there will be processes which will not > run, or else they will not run correctly on my computer. The answer to > this problem does not seemed to be addressed while using 'dhclient' in > any of the printed information that I could find. If you're running DHCP, then you could just have dhclient set the system name. I do something like this on my own laptop, but I haven't got access to it at the moment. Basically I just had one of the dhclient "hooks" scripts set the machine's hostname to whatever DHCP had just assigned. Something like: if [ "x${new_host_name}" = "x" ] ; then hostname ${new_host_name} fi If you want to be able to go offline without rebooting, you would need a little more tinkering -- probably an entry in pccard.conf resetting your hostname when you remove the modem card would do that. -- Lowell Gilbert, embedded/networking software engineer, Boston area http://be-well.ilk.org:8088/~lowell/