Hostname configuration (was: Need help debugging...)

[Steven W. Orr]

On Sunday, Feb 19th 2006 at 17:35 -0500, quoth Ben Scott:

=>On 2/19/06, Steven W. Orr <steveo at syslang.net> wrote:
=>> 526 > hostname
=>> saturn.syslang.net
=>
=>  When setting my system's hostname, I *prefer* (emphasis indicates a
=>subjective opinion) to set the system's hostname to the short
=>(unqualified) name.  For example:
=>
=>	$ hostname
=>	wildfire
=>
=>Then, I place an entry in my /etc/hosts file to provide the FQDN:
=>
=>	$ grep wildfire /etc/hosts
=>	10.10.10.10     wildfire.bscott.local   wildfire
=>
=>That means anything asking for the FQDN gets the right answer:
=>
=>	$ hostname -f
=>	wildfire.bscott.local
=>
=>  I find this strategy has the best track record in getting things to
=>work the way I want them to.  It means that just prints the hostname
=>for informational purposes doesn't fill the screen or file with half a
=>line of FQDN.  To me, it just looks neater.  Meanwhile, anything
=>asking for the FQDN will still get it, properly.  It means the FQDN is
=>only set in one place.  It also means that as domain names change, my
=>hostname remains the same.
=>
=>  Put another way, my main personal computer's name is "wildfire". 
=>That's it's name regardless of where it is.  It has been
=>wildfire.bscott.local, wildfire.inside.nyisys.com,  and
=>wildfire.sr.unh.edu, to name a few that I remember.
=>
=>  Again, this is just the way *I* prefer to do things.  There are
=>other ways that work just fine for other people.
=>
=>  For example, it was recently pointed out to me that, for the case of
=>"a 2LD has only one server, and that server handles only that domain",
=>setting the system hostname to the 2LD means one does not have to
=>configure certain other things to know the difference between the
=>hostname and the domain name.  That is to say, if your FQDN is
=>"server.example.com", you might want to tell Sendmail to masquerade as
=>"example.com".  If you instead set the hostname to "example.com", you
=>do not need to do that.
=>
=>  Personally, I think the 2LD==hostname strategy is suboptimal (i.e.,
=>I think it's totally wrong, but have little objective evidence to back
=>that up ;-) ) .  The way I look at things, a 2LD should be treated as
=>a thing separate from a hostname.  There's nothing in DNS that says
=>you need to do things that way; I just like to think of a 2LD as a
=>container, not a host.  This matters more if you have more than one
=>server to worry about.
=>
=>  I'm wondering what others on the list think about this topic?  Since
=>it's so subjective, I'm sure we can get a real good flamewar going
=>over it.  ;-)
=>
=>-- Ben

BINGO! That solves it! I still don't know why this just happened, but I'll 
take it.


-- 
Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like a banana. Stranger things have  .0.
happened but none stranger than this. Does your driver's license say Organ ..0
Donor?Black holes are where God divided by zero. Listen to me! We are all- 000
individuals! What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
steveo at syslang.net