From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jan 4 16:43:23 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id QAA01512 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 16:43:23 -0800 (PST) Received: from ncc-1701-d.starfleet.gov (root@ix-sb1-15.ix.netcom.com [204.32.201.47]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA01499 for ; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 16:43:18 -0800 (PST) Received: (from d_burr@localhost) by ncc-1701-d.starfleet.gov (8.6.11/8.6.9) id QAA02908; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 16:47:48 -0800 Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 16:47:47 -0800 (PST) From: Donald Burr X-Sender: d_burr@ncc-1701-d.starfleet.gov To: FreeBSD Questions Subject: a couple host.conf and nameserver questions... Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk I run FreeBSD 2.1-release on my 486/66, which is connected to the rest of the world via a 28.8 PPP connection. Naturally, this ain't no 56k line, and so things tend to bog down sometimes, especially when I'm FTP'ing in another session or something. This especially hurts stuff like IP->hostname resolution, e.g. when using the "netstat" command or similar. So I decided to try something: I figured, as an experiment, to put the IP addresses and hostnames of some commonly-used hosts (ftp.cdrom.com, ftp.freebsd.org, all the various netcom servers, etc.) into /etc/hosts. Because I remember vaguely that there is a way to tell UNIX to search /etc/hosts BEFORE going out on the net and consulting a nameserver. Back in my heydey of Ultrix, I remember there was a file called something like /etc/svc.conf where I could say something like "hosts = hosts, bind", which basically meant that the system would look in /etc/hosts to resolve IP addresses to names, before checking the nameserver. (Please excuse any mistakes, it's been a long time, and one I'd rather forget...) More recently, when running LInux, I could use the /etc/host.conf and put "order = hosts, bind" in it to do the same thing. But apparently, FreeBSD doesn't work that way. If I just put "hosts" alone in /etc/host.conf, then it works fine. But if I try accessing a host that's not in /etc/hosts, it craps out wiht an error. OK, this makes sense. But it isn't quite the desired behaviour. If I put: bind hosts in it, then it checks the nameserver first, and if the nameserver doesn't know about it, THEN it looks in /etc/hosts. This works too -- the nameserver knows about Internet hosts I'm contacting, but DOESN'T know about hosts on my local ("fake") ethernet. But /etc/hosts knows about these, so everything is still cool. BUT (and here's the clincher), if I put: hosts bind in /etc/host.conf... well, you'd figure that it'll check the hosts file first, and if it can't find it, it'll check the nameserver. WRONG!! It still insists on checking the nameserver first, then /etc/hosts. Not the desired behavior either. So what's going on here? Is this a bug in the shared libraries, or the networking code, or whatnot? (FYI, this system usd to be a 2.0.5 box, so MAYBE some old 2.0.5 stuff is still hanging around... if this behavior is fixed in 2.1, then that it might be the time to throw caution to the wind and go ahead and do a full re-install) Now, on an aside: Is it possible for me to set up a SMALL nameserver (named) on my machine that will somehow CACHE all recent IP->host mappings that my box does, so taht if I've associated an IP with a host name already, it won't have to go out on the ppp link to access the internet? enquiring minds want to know... Donald Burr [d_burr@ix.netcom.com], PO Box 91212, Santa Barbara CA 93190-1212 TEL (805)564-1871 / FAX 564-2315 / WWW http://www.geopages.com/WallStreet/2072 PGP Public Key available by request (send e-mail) or on Public Key Servers. ** Uphold your right to privacy - Use PGP. **