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Date:      Mon, 5 May 1997 22:11:50 +0200
From:      j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
To:        freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Cc:        marko@ki.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de (Marko Schuetz)
Subject:   Re: bind before hosts and iijppp...
Message-ID:  <19970505221150.DH03755@uriah.heep.sax.de>
In-Reply-To: <199705051353.GAA25141@hub.freebsd.org>; from Marko Schuetz on May 5, 1997 15:47:58 %2B0200
References:  <199705051353.GAA25141@hub.freebsd.org>

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As Marko Schuetz wrote:

> Maybe a better policy would be to have as few as possible entries in
> /etc/hosts, but have /etc/host.conf default to hosts before bind.

bind before hosts is the default policy (also if there's no host.conf
at all).  This has a long tradition, and it's basically ``The Right
Thing'', since it just means the opinion of the network administrator
(who administers the DNS) has more weight than that of the local
system's administrator (who maintains /etc/hosts) when it comes to
network maintenance.

If you're not going to use DNS, well, you're at a loss and should
revert the entries.

Sysinstall should offer setting up a local caching DNS server anyway,
this can be done within 10 seconds, at the cost of a few hundred KB of
RAM.  If you're PPP connected, it's wise to also mirror the forward
and reverse zones of your own domain.

Btw., use IP numbers (and not hostnames) in PPP and system setup files
to avoid chicken-and-egg problems.

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)



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