namedquery.c timing question

[Douglas Leonard]

I've run into a problem recently with attempting to do a forward lookup to
an invalid host.  My /etc/nsswitch.conf on Solaris 2.6 has the hosts order
set to files wins.  Since the host is invalid the lookup takes the amount
of time set in struct in_addr, int retry_time in namequery.c.  This amount
of time can be shortened by modifying the value of retry_time but I'm
wondering what else this may affect.  Where did the current value for
retry_time come from?  Is it a codified part of the Wins specs or is it
just a best case default of some sort?

Since the lookups occur serially, it would be very, very nice to be able
to set this to a much smaller value but I don't know whether this would
have any unpleasant remifications.

Thanks,

-- 
<Douglas Leonard>
<dleonard at dleonard.net>