Thanks for the useful analogy!
When I initially installed YDL 4.1 I was confused and sloppy and
during the configuration/install script, set the hostname to be
"runner.workstaions.winona.edu" (note the spelling error)
Immediately afterwards, I could connect to the machine by ssh'ing
from an external machine to,
ssh runner.workstaions.winona.edu
and
ssh runner.workstaions.winona.edu.workstations.winona.edu
The only way to "solve" this problem was in my mind to grep for all
occurrences of "workstaions" in etc,
grep --recursive --color "workstaions" /etc/*
and then manually replace "runner.workstaions.winona.edu" with
"runner" (this the mention of ifcfg-eth0 files in my earlier email).
While I don't understand the mechanism, somehow linux was telling
somebody outside the machine that the machines name was,
"runner.workstaions.winona.edu"
What I mean to ask is what program the YDL installer/configurator
runs, or to what files the installer writes, to set the machine's
hostname and domain name. I should now be able to run those programs
(or edit the files) again and (closing my eyes about the machinations
of DNS) have the external network pick up the proper hostname as it
did earlier when I had set the hostname incorrectly.
thanks again!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Nathan Moore
Physics
Winona State University
AIM:nmoorewsu
On Jul 15, 2006, at 3:39 PM, Christopher Murtagh wrote:
On 7/15/06, Nathan Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yes, I've heard from my sysadmin that when my machine sends out an
initial DHCP address request, the (DNS server?)
No, DHCP requests go to DHCP servers. It is not related to DNS at all.
What I don't understand is how to tell our DNS server
what I'd like the machine to be called.
You can't, only the person who controls DNS can do this (usually a
LAN admin).
I get the impression from our sysadmin the this naming is
automatic and
depends on information that I somehow send to the DNS server.
It is extremely unlikely that you send anything to a DNS server. DNS
is not something that you want multiple people configuring changing.
What would happen if two people wanted the name 'foobar.domain.com'?
Who would win?
In the same vein, if I have no control over my machine's hostname,
why does one step of the YDL install process involve "setting the
hostname"? Is this step a placebo to make me feel like I have more
control?
Not at all. This is so the machine knows what it will call itself.
Most of the time, it can determine this via a reverse DNS lookup as
well.
Imagine a child being born and saying "hey, what's my name?". Only
the authoritive person (in this case, the parent) can tell the child
what her name is. If she decides to change her name, she simply can't
just say "today, my name is foobar", she has to go to the authorities
and have it changed. Human networking is less efficient than the
computer networking. We have several layers and now standard way to
propagate changes. If you change your name, you have to tell everyone
'Hey, my name has changed'. In the computer world, DNS takes care of
this (actually, it doesn't track changes, but it tells people where to
find hostname 'foobar').
Cheers,
Chris
Thanks so much for your reply!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Nathan Moore
Physics
Winona State University
AIM:nmoorewsu
On Jul 15, 2006, at 1:49 PM, Christopher Murtagh wrote:
> On 7/14/06, Nathan Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I want the machine to have hostname "runner" under the domainname
>> "workstations.winona.edu", so that from within the campus
network I
>> should be able to either,
>> ssh runner
>> or
>> ssh runner.workstations.winona.edu,
>> both of which presently fail
>
> Hi Nathan,
>
> There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding as to how hostnames
> work and propagate. You cannot do what you are trying to do by
> configuring your machine. If you want this to work, you need to
> contact the local LAN admin responsible for DNS. Setting it in your
> /etc/hosts file or changing your hostname will only be seen by that
> machine. No other machine has access to either of those, so these
> changes will not propagate on the net. This is the precise
purpose for
> DNS.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
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