On Sat, 8 Mar 2014 02:48:08 +0000 Martin T <m4rtn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > However, the question itself is simple- where and how is the domain > name, which I inserted during the installation, used? So far it seems > to be used only for completing the domain names. > > A domain name matters for servers which serve a large number of computers locally, and is vital across the Net. But you are right, in an environment with at most a few workstations talking only to Internet hosts, there's no practical use for a domain name. You are already aware that a computer's 'domain' need have no connection with any email domain name(s). If a workstation is part of a network and you wish to refer to one of the other machines, the domain name stored in the DNS resolution part of the workstation allows you to use just the hostname. The 'D' in DNS means that a domain *must* be involved, even in a purely local lookup. That really is just about all it's used for in a workstation, until you get into Samba sharing or Windows 'domain' membership. There is also some crossover from Windows, in that many Linux users started out on Windows, where every networked machine is either part of a 'domain', a significantly different thing from a DNS domain but unfortunately sharing the name, or a workgroup. A Windows 'domain' is in fact pretty much a Kerberos realm. Windows also, for purely commercial reasons, draws a hard distinction between 'servers' and 'workstations'. This is not the case in Linux, where a single computer attached to an Internet modem might run continuously and operate a SMTP server, in which case it pretty much must also run a local DNS server. To avoid the situation where an additional and possibly obscure set of questions must be asked at installation time, Linux does not have any strict demarcation between 'server' and 'workstation', and always asks the domain question to avoid possible issues later. It is still a bit of a scary question for new users, and although the dialog box tries to say something along the lines of 'if you don't know what this means, don't worry about it', it doesn't succeed very well. And no, I can't think of a short, good explanation of domains to put here, either. -- Joe -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140308092554.1aba4...@jretrading.com
