On Wed, Jan 20, 1999 at 05:58:01PM +0100, Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote:
> Mike Nguyen <mikengu...@sprintmail.com> 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: <jo...@krdl.org.sg>
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
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