Suggestion for new 'dns proxy' feature?

Robert Franklin r.c.franklin at reading.ac.uk
Fri May 21 13:11:36 GMT 1999


On Fri, 21 May 1999 13:45:02 +0100 (BST) Mac <dmccann at nibsc.ac.uk> wrote:


> >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?

I mean local as in under 'rdg.ac.uk', our DNS domain; I only want it to 
try and resolve simple (not fully qualified) names because that would 
quickly get a 'yay' or 'nay' and not halt nmbd too long.


> >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.

Ah... yes, I could do that.  Although we have NIS at the moment, I'm 
trying to move away from it as the primary nameserver and just use DNS.

But yes, we could do what you said in /etc/nsswitch.conf (we use Solaris) 
or (I think) Samba has this option, too.


> 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.

No problem.  :)  I was just hoping for a way in which Samba could sort 
this out.


As I said, I was just trying to minimise the disruption someone would 
cause by doing '\\nibbles.net' (where nibbles.net does not exist, it 
would take sometime for the DNS query to discover it didn't really exist).


Thanks for your help!

  - Bob


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