Subject: Re: name service (does anyone else see this?)
To: Michael K. Sanders <msanders@confusion.net>
From: John Hawkinson <jhawk@panix.com>
List: current-users
Date: 08/05/1995 22:10:54
> From: "Michael K. Sanders" <msanders@confusion.net>
> To: mouse@Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU (der Mouse)
> Cc: current-users@NetBSD.ORG

> To quote the O'Reily DNS & BIND book (page 106):

Not that this is an authoritative source...

>   You can also configure the resolver to query the host's local name
>   server, by using either the local host's IP address or the zero
>   address.  The zero address, 0.0.0.0, is interpreted by most TCP/IP
>   implementations to mean "this host."

That hardly means you should use it.

>   The host's real IP address, of course, also means "this host." On
>   hosts that don't understand the zero address, you can use the
>   loopback address, 127.0.0.1.

You should certainly use the loopback address in preference to
0.0.0.0, which is entirely bogus. If any implementation accepts it,
it's confused itself.

It's an open question as to whether you should use the ip address of
an interface, or use the loopback. It generally doesn't matter, but
using the loopback address is more likely to do the right thing if
you copy the resolv.conf file to another machine (depending on what
you mean by "right").

Of course, you should always have more than one nameserver in
resolv.conf, particularly if the first one is yourself, since some thnigs
try to resolve names at boot time prior to named starting, like,
say, syslogd.

--
John Hawkinson
jhawk@panix.com