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

[Dan Jenkins]

Ben Scott wrote:

>  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. ;-)

I'm in agreement with you, Ben. I did the hostname==domainname
about ten years ago. It did simplify a few things. It also confused the
hell out of Network Solution later. (It also confused Vitts, but than
again many things did.)

We had used XYZ.COM as our domain's host record. It became
embedded in NetSol's database and they said they could not correct
it. (When they even understood what the problem was.) They had no
way to remove or, more importantly, alter a host record which matched
a domain name. Our record had been migrated from their old system
to their new and, apparently, they had no facility in the new system to
address this scenario. We migrated to another registrar and, presumably,
those host records are still buried in NetSol's database. They were, several
years after we had left when I last checked.
-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
*** Technical Support for over a Quarter Century