Re: CVS import: src/external/bsd/dhcpcd/dist

[Roy Marples <roy%marples.name@localhost>]

David Holland <dholland-sourcechanges%netbsd.org@localhost> writes:
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 07:15:52PM -0700, Erik Fair wrote:
>  > > * dhcpcd will now assign a short hostname by default
>  > >  To use a FQDN hostname, set this in dhcpcd.conf(5)
>  > >  env hostname_fqdn=YES
>  >
>  > This is the wrong default, too - hostname should always be FQDN.
>
> This is far from universally agreed upon.
>
> However, ISTM that if dhcpcd is going to set the hostname at all
> (which is usually wrong) it should set the hostname the dhcp server
> provides and not try to munge it.

Which hostname should dhcpcd set?

DHCPv4 has these options:
hostname
domainname
FQ

DHCPv6 has these options:
FQDN

Hmmm, so DHCPv6 has a few missing.
So if DHCPv4 is configured to send these options

hostname: foo
domainname: bar.org
FQDN: foo.bar.org

DHCPv6
FQDN:foo.bar.org

Of course, all these options are optional. It's equally valid for the 
FQDN option to appear in DHCPv4 as a latter RFC added it.
What's more interesting is that depending if DHCPv6 happens before 
DHCPv4 (which is likely as the DAD checking is a lot faster even if the 
DHCPv4 handshake happens first).

It's equally possible the DHCPv4 hostname could contain the domainname 
as well, but this configuration dependent.

So what should dhcpcd do when assigning a hostname from this 
information?
To provide a consistent result, assuming we have all the data, we can 
either set a short name or a FQDN.

I elected to set a short name, because it's the one guaranteed constant.
Also some distros like Debian state the hostname *must* be the short 
name. I did extensive research and could find no documentation for other 
distros to state FQDN or short name should be used. Certainly NetBSDs 
own documentation doesn't state this.

On a multi-homed system, bge0 could be foo.bar.org and bge1 could be 
foo.deadbeef,org so in this instance again the short name is the correct 
answer.

I of course am open to discussion on why you think FQDN or straight 
through is better but you'll have to provide compelling argumentation 
rather than an opinion piece.

Thanks

Roy