On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 14:55:09 -0700 (PDT), JS <oghistorian@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> 
> I do not know
> the name server of my ISP.  Is there anyway that the
> computer can autoconfig this, or do I have to check
> with my ISP?

(As a technical matter, you don't need to use the DNS your ISP provides. 
You can use any DNS on the internet, as long as you know its address,
which you could look up in whois.  As a practical matter, your ISP's DNS
is "closer" to you and will probably give you the best performance.)  

If you don't want/need/like to get your ISP's DNS addresses, NetBSD does
have a self-configuring alternative: join the system and run your own DNS.
 DNS servers know how to find each other; you just point resolv.conf at
localhost.  

	http://www.netbsd.org/guide/en/chap-dns.html

See Section 12.5, or skip it and do this:

# grep ^named /etc/defaults/rc.conf \
 	|sed -Ee's/NO/YES/; 
		 s!\"\".+$!\"-c /etc/namedb/named.conf\"! 
		' >> /etc/rc.conf

That will put this line in rc.conf:
	named=YES  named_flags="-c /etc/namedb/named.conf"

Then:
	# /etc/rc.c/named start

check with 
	$ cat /var/run/named.pid

to see named's process id, and 
	$ tail /var/log/messages

to see the good/bad news.  

--jkl