UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Greetings to all,

I have not been in a unix environment for many years, but I am back.
Question is regarding how to setup or check how it's configured is DNS on a SPARCstation 20 runing SunOS 4.1.4 2 sun4m

I have a DNS server on the network and would like the sun box to use it for it's name resolution.

Also with this version of OS can the box be setup to use both a host file and dns?

Your help is greatly appreciated,

Don

Point the machine to your DNS server using the resolv.conf file:

domain [domain_here]
namserver [nameserver_here]

You can have a number of nameservers, it will query in the order they are given in this file.

Yes you can use different name resolution mechanisms, the nsswitch.conf covers this:

hosts: files dns

This would query the hosts files and then go to DNS, if you reverse the entries then the opposite would be true. Additional syntax is available for this file to allow you to sepecify the behaviour of name resolution when one source is not responding, or does not hold the answer, its all self explanatory.

By the way this sounds very familiar to another couple of questions answered here. Searching next time will give you a quicker answer!

Regards.

if you look a few topics down you will see an exact copy of your question. Please use the search funtion by keyword or a string of keywords.

Thanks, I have setup both the resolv.conf and nsswitch.conf files.

but I cant ping anything using a FQDN for a node on our local net. I have confirmed the DNS record exists on the DNS server.

I haven't done a reboot since creating the nsswitch.conf file, is this required before it will work?

BTW I tried searching the forum but the query must be 4 char in length thus DNS would not fly.

Any other thoughts?

hup the inamed daemon to re read the config files.

another thing to try.

do an nslookup on the unix machine your trying to set this up on.

1) do you connect to a dns server?
a) if not then there ovestly a problem w/
a1) your nic/network connection
a2) your dns server

2) you can connect but
a) you con only do one way resolution ie: ip to name but not name to ip
a1) the host entries are set up incorectly on the dns server
b) you can not do any name resolution
b1) there is not entry in the dns tables

Sending a HUP signal on the local machine to the named daemon is not necessary since it is a client and unless answering queries should not even have named running.

Try a few networking troubleshoots, make sure you can ping via IP address, try connecting to the name server using nslookup and see if it will return queries, if you cant connect then something is blocking your path, keep in mind DNS typically queries on port 53, do you have any rules in for this? If you can connect to the name server but cannot obtain an authoritative answer for the host then check the record on the nameserver for errors.

Generally if you are able to query a nameserver and obtain answers there is nothing wrong with the name resolution setup on the local host, there may be other networking issues, or something wrong with the nameserver records.

For the record a reboot is not needed if modifications are made to nsswitch or resolv.conf.

Regards.

alwayslearningunix: for somethings like this it can never hurt. but you are absoulutly correct a hup is not needed.

man u guys always chim in as i am editing my posts too. whats with that? laf