From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jul 18 22:09:23 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org 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 6B9C216A41C for ; Mon, 18 Jul 2005 22:09:23 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dopplecoder@gmail.com) Received: from zproxy.gmail.com (zproxy.gmail.com [64.233.162.196]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EDB9543D48 for ; Mon, 18 Jul 2005 22:09:22 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from dopplecoder@gmail.com) Received: by zproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id n1so999884nzf for ; Mon, 18 Jul 2005 15:09:22 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=tPRcsrKaqqSQ1PIFn9uOU7xcQs6b3SZ5IxXI8wqTzPeJP3AqSpb9r8ZMvwl1xoVWPapUxnbX30EAYPMZlnqp/hzQ2s4NOjqJaTs6Dvmsq2KAhpxILeefCmb/yBvcwtXZSYM07yDS0RDL30RepcV/aXrvpMYgKL9YOOZgV2PQBDM= Received: by 10.36.39.10 with SMTP id m10mr1815431nzm; Mon, 18 Jul 2005 15:08:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.36.128.17 with HTTP; Mon, 18 Jul 2005 15:08:53 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <45d750d20507181508440b34b3@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 18:08:53 -0400 From: Aaron Peterson To: "Gary W. Swearingen" In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <1121706617.14792.3.camel@lmail.bathnetworks.co.uk> <45d750d20507181013a90065f@mail.gmail.com> Cc: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" Subject: Re: Change of FQDN X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Aaron Peterson List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 22:09:23 -0000 On 7/18/05, Gary W. Swearingen wrote: > Aaron Peterson writes: >=20 > > hostname=3D"www.mydomain.com" >=20 > Say I have two Ethernet ports and I'd like to be gary.mydomain.com on > one and gary2.mydomain.com or gary.mydomain2.com on the other; then > what? >=20 > A computer's domain name is set in several places -- not always the > same values. Most commonly they're in DNS servers and /etc/hosts and, > of course, the computer's kernel as set by the "hostname" command (eg, > using /etc/rc.conf's "hostname" variable). But since there's only one > "hostname" setting, which can't always match all the others, it's > never made sense to me to set "hostname" to any public Internet domain > name. (And I never have, IIRC.) >=20 > And according to BCP-32, at http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt, > "localhost" is the traditional top-level domain name "pointing to the > loop back IP address" (which I think of as the 127/24 network), and it > should be used to help keep broken DNS software from using any bogus > domain on the Internet except well-known ones like "localhost". >=20 > Though the "hostname" command allows use of a top-level domain, other > software doesn't (eg, "sendmail"), so it seems that a good domain is > "something.localhost", where "something" may be "localhost", which > might avoid some problems with broken software, or something more > creative and maybe assigned uniquely to each of a group of computers. > It is not used in the public (or maybe even a private) DNS system, > except as an identifier for log files. >=20 > Am I missing something? It's quite likely. What other software > than sendmail needs my single "hostname" and when? Setting your public dns names on your dns servers and possibly in /etc/hosts is probably a better option depending on your goals. An arbitrary hostname has been fine for me in all cases. Do whatever accomplishes your goals. Aaron