Suggestion for new 'dns proxy' feature?

[Mac]

Hi Bob, (and everyone else)

>Am I right I thinking that if I turn on 'dns proxy', I can do 
>'\\smb.x.org' (if it fits into 15) letters?

Basically yes.


>I'd like to use 'dns proxy' but only for local addresses in my domain.

By local you mean 'not in DNS' ?  If so, why not just turn off 'dns
proxy'.  Or are you really looking for IP-hostname lookups from a
Windows client's Netbios-style request?


>Would it be possible to do add a 'dns proxy local only = yes' or 
>something (new option) which won't use DNS to resolve names which have a 
>'.' in?
>
>(Alternatively, if I can do this already, how do I?)

Well, one way you could do it (in Silicon Graphics' IRIX at least) is to
run Smaba in an environment with DNS turned off.  The environment
variable HOSTRESORDER can be set to something like 'dns nis local' to
search those sources in that order (where 'local' means /etc/hosts) for
hostnames.

Equally you could modify your Samba startup script to set (and export)
HOSTRESORDER to (say) 'nis local' just before starting nmbd.  Then
assuming Samba doesn't do anything silly (like directly access the DNS
resolver routines) you can leave 'dns proxy' turned on and any Windows
cleint requesting a name from Samba that isn't a Nebios name will be
looked up in your site's NIS and then /etc/hosts.


I'm sorry I have to be IRIX specific, but you didn't mention what OS
you're running so I picked one I know best.  You may well find something
similar in your OS.


CAUTION
I've not actually tried any of this, and it almost certainly _won't_
work in IRIX 6.5



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