SUMMARY: How to find automatically a name server?
Stephane Bortzmeyer
<bortz...@cnam.cnam.fr> writes:
> Does anyone know a protocol/implementation who could allow machines on
> a local area network to find automatically their name server?
I received many replies, including those who were posted. basically,
they fell into two categories:
- Some people suggested to use BOOTP,
- others said it would be better to update /etc/resolv.conf or the
equivalent database by another mechanism.
BOOTP is specified by RFC 951 and extended by RFC 1084. The ability to
query for a name server (or many other informations) is in the second
one. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem widely implemented, either by BOOTP
servers or clients.
A lot of BOOTP clients and servers exist, for all machines. They are
shipped with most Unices, often without RFC 1084.
An example of BOOTP server with RFC 1084 is in lancaster.andrew.cmu.edu
in pub/bootp.2.1.tar.Z (according to archie, it can be found in many
other sites). I've not yet found a client to it.
There is a BOOTP client in MacTCP (Apple's version of TCP/IP) but it
doesn't seem able to fill in the "name server" field threw BOOTP. (I'm
not sure of that because I didn't manage yet to get the "MacTCP
administrator's guide.)
Peter Koch <p...@deins.informatik.uni-dortmund.de> also mentioned the
Resource Location Protocol (RFC 887) which seems very nice but was
never used and will be soon reclassified as "historic".
The other solution to manage the clients would be to update
periodically (either with rcp, ftp or nfs) the /etc/resolv.conf from a
central reference machine. Again, it's not a solution for the Macs.
NIS (ex-YP) provides another solution since the name server is known by
the YP servers. But YP seems to be very difficult to use in a mixed
environment. And they don't work for the Macintoshes. (We have around
100 DNS clients, rapidly increasing, most of them being Macs.)
Thanks to Peter Koch <p...@deins.informatik.uni-dortmund.de>, Seppo
Syrjanen <syrj...@cc.helsinki.fi>, Ian Phillipps <i...@unipalm.co.uk>
and Ruediger Volk <r...@Informatik.Uni-Dortmund.DE> for BOOTP and Antonis
Kyriazis <ant...@intranet.gr> and
Christophe...@grasp.insa-lyon.fr for the other solutions.
And thanks to everybody who use the News to reply.
Stephane Bortzmeyer Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers
bortz...@cnam.cnam.fr Laboratoire d'Informatique
292, rue Saint-Martin
tel: +33 (1) 40 27 27 31 75141 Paris Cedex 03
fax: +33 (1) 40 27 27 72 France
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