From owner-freebsd-current Wed Jan 20 18:05:13 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA20397 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Wed, 20 Jan 1999 18:05:13 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from krdl.org.sg (rodin.krdl.org.sg [137.132.252.27]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA20329 for ; Wed, 20 Jan 1999 18:04:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from joerg@mailbox.iss.nus.sg) Received: from mailhost.krdl.org.sg (mailbox.krdl.org.sg [137.132.247.30]) by krdl.org.sg (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id JAA10632; Thu, 21 Jan 1999 09:44:00 +0800 (SGT) Received: from negara.nus.sg (negara [137.132.248.175]) by mailhost.krdl.org.sg (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id JAA14896; Thu, 21 Jan 1999 09:38:04 +0800 (SGT) Received: (from joerg@localhost) by negara.nus.sg (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id CAA00485; Thu, 21 Jan 1999 02:39:14 +0800 (SGT) Message-ID: <19990121023914.B468@krdl.org.sg> Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 02:39:14 +0800 From: "Joerg B. Micheel" To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav , Mike Nguyen Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: /etc/nsswitch.conf References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: ; from Dag-Erling Smorgrav on Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 05:58:01PM +0100 Organization: Kent Ridge Digital Labs, Singapore Project: SingAREN, the Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network Operating-System: ... drained by Solaris 7 Intel Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 05:58:01PM +0100, Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote: > Mike Nguyen writes: > > I noticed that NetBSD is switching over to using /etc/nsswitch.conf (like > > Slowlaris, PH-UX, etc.). Would it be a good idea to do this for FreeBSD too > > (when I first started using FreeBSD, it took me a long time to figure out the > > analogous file for hostname lookups was /etc/host.conf) -- it seems > > consolidating all that config information would in one place would be a good > > thing. > > When I first started using Solaris, it took me a long time to figure > out the analoguous file for hostname setup was /etc/nodename. It seems Thats because Solaris has separated hostname's from nodename. Originally, /etc/hostname.le0, the name/IP address for the primary Ethernet interface, would become the hosts name. What, if you have 3 or 4 interfaces ? The algorithm used in /etc/rc* with SunOS would pick the first interface available. Now if you happen to have a vendor that picks an network interface name "lower" than "le", your host suddenly may a different name. So it happend with FORE's SPANS interface (fa0). When reading Internet RFCs carefully, you figure that there is in fact the term of a nodename, so the decision that Sun made was not very far fetched. Which did not keep them from making the same mistake again. The default multicast interface again gets chosen the same odd way, instead of having a separate configuration mechanism. I chose to reconfigure machines and add something like /etc/hostname.mcast and make it a symlink to the appropriate interface. > consolidating all that config information in one place, such as > /etc/rc.conf, would be a good thing. Agreed, it really isn't such a good idea to clutter /etc/ with all those single line configuration files. Joerg -- Joerg B. Micheel Email: SingAREN Technology Center Phone: +65 8742582 Kent Ridge Digital Labs, Rm 3-65, C041 Fax: +65 7744990 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pager: +65 96016020 Singapore 119613 Plan: Troubleshooting ATM Republic of Singapore Networks and Applications To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message