DNS issues with OpenVMS

[Single Stage to Orbit]

I have installed and configured OpenVMS x86.

DHCP working well. Picks up IP address quite happily, configures
gateway to the router happily.

One thing I can't figure out is how to get it to hand off DNS lookups
to my router which I need to resolve machine names on my network.

I can use either serial over TCP/IP or SSH into the machine using IP
addresses quite easily.

Any ideas?
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

[Steven Schweda]

> Any ideas?

RTFM?

https://docs.vmssoftware.com/vsi-tcpip-services-for-openvms-installation-and-configuration/#d0e2684

tcpip help set name_service /server
tcpip help set name_service /system

[Single Stage to Orbit]

Thanks, I will look through these, link bookmarked.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

[Stephen Hoffman]

Go static. Or, well, let us know what you find.

I've never gotten OpenVMS working reliably with DHCP. Yeah, it
sorta-kinda works, probably works well enough to be used as a
workstation, but I always end up chasing something gone weird or gone
wrong when deploying OpenVMS as a server with DHCP addressing.

Accordingly, I always set OpenVMS with a static IP address, and (as
needed) set the DHCP server to recognize and reserve the IP address for
the OpenVMS server MAC address(es), on the off chance OpenVMS makes a
DHCP request.

Within TCPIP$CONFIG, set your DNS server address(es) to the local DNS
server(s).

Working in your favor here for DHCP, OpenVMS is fairly limited about
its network connection security, which means most network services
won't be failing with SSL errors if the reverse DNS is wrong. (The
connections should fail if reverse DNS is wrong, of course.)

Microsoft integrates DNS and DHCP via DDNS within Windows Server
networking, but DDNS setup can be a separate step with other DHCP
servers, and DDNS is not available with some DHCP servers. BIND does
have DDNS support. I don't know off-hand if the now-deprecated ISC DHCP
server supports DDNS, if you're using that.

I'm not aware of any DCL-level tooling that allows easy access to the
lease information, either.

OpenVMS TCP/IP Services DHCP client requires the following "files" from
the DHCP server, too: nets., netmasks., dhcpcap, .ddnskeys, and
server.pcy.



--
Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC

[Hans Bachner]

Stephen Hoffman schrieb am 18.04.2023 um 17:43:
> On 2023-04-18 13:11:52 +0000, Single Stage to Orbit said:
>
>> I have installed and configured OpenVMS x86.
>> DHCP working well. Picks up IP address quite happily, configures
>> gateway to the router happily.
>> One thing I can't figure out is how to get it to hand off DNS lookups
>> to my router which I need to resolve machine names on my network.
>> I can use either serial over TCP/IP or SSH into the machine using IP
>> addresses quite easily.
>> Any ideas?
>
> Go static. Or, well, let us know what you find.
>
> I've never gotten OpenVMS working reliably with DHCP. Yeah, it
> sorta-kinda works, probably works well enough to be used as a
> workstation, but I always end up chasing something gone weird or gone
> wrong when deploying OpenVMS as a server with DHCP addressing.
>

> Accordingly, I always set OpenVMS with a static IP address, [...]

Well, I've been running most of my VMS nodes in the lab (at least with
V7 and newer) as DHCP clients in my lab for almost two decades.

They receive almost everything they need, like default gateway and dns
servers. The only thing I could not get working (but didn't try much)
was to get the NTP server list via DHCP as well.

The more permanent nodes are configured with fixed addresses on the DHCP
server and are bound to either MAC address or hostname. Using DHCP saved
me modifying the subnet mask on all my (VMS, Linux, Windows) boxes when
expanding / reconfiguring the lab network. All nodes received the new
mask via DHCP.

> I'm not aware of any DCL-level tooling that allows easy access to the lease information, either.

$ SHOWDHC SYS$SYSDEVICE:[TCPIP$DHCP]WE0.dhc

shows what the IP stack received via DHCP.

Hans.

[Single Stage to Orbit]

On Tue, 2023-04-18 at 20:01 +0200, Hans Bachner wrote:
> > I'm not aware of any DCL-level tooling that allows easy access to
> > the lease information, either.
>
> $ SHOWDHC SYS$SYSDEVICE:[TCPIP$DHCP]WE0.dhc

Brilliant, thanks.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

[Stephen Hoffman]

That's hilarious.

$ SHOWDHC SE0.DHC
se0.dhc:
ht=1:ha=08.00.2b.2a.de.a8:sa=10.10.2.3:yi=10.10.2.101:sm=255.255.255.0:gw=10.10.

2.66:ds=10.10.2.11:ho=rufus:dn=lkg.dec.com:ba=10.10.2.255:lt=1200:sv=10.10.2.3:
t1=600:t2=1050:

Did somebody accidentally document an internal debugging tool?