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From: del@thrush.mlb.semi.harris.com (Don Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Dealing with systems without nameservice.
Message-ID: <1990Jun1.083800.26231@mlb.semi.harris.com>
Date: 1 Jun 90 08:38:00 GMT
References: <9005230215.AA10732@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <386@minya.UUCP>
Sender: news@mlb.semi.harris.com
Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne FL
Lines: 50

In article <386@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>In article <9005230215.AA10732@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, 08071TCP@MSU.BITNET (Doug Nelson) writes:
>> From Stan Stead:
>> >        We are running 4.3 BSD.  We currently use nameservice.  However,
>> >a site that we wish to exchange mail and files, while connected to the
>> >internet, does not use nameservice.  We can access the site by internet
>> >number, but not by name.  Is there anyway to "hot-wire" an address
>> >(perhaps via /etc/hosts).  Currently, the only way /etc/hosts is read
>> >is if named is not running.
>> 
>> The real answer is for them to set up name service.  I can't think of
>> any good reason for sites attached to the internet to not be running
>> name service, or to find a site that can run name service for them.
>
>Gee, I can think of several reasons off the top of my head.  For instance,
>I'm working in a network testing lab in which we are constantly fiddling
>with the wiring, setting up new networks for a few hours, interconnecting
>them at random, changing host names and IP addresses, and all the other
>things you need to do to test stuff.  It's not even vaguely reasonable
>to expect a nameserver administrator to keep track of all our fiddlings,
>and usually we only tell them about the couple of "main" machines that
>hold the source, or where we want to send/receive mail.  The rest we take
>care of by editing /etc/hosts as needed.

You could just create a "lab" subdomain and designate one of your
local machines as the server.  That way you don't have to bother
your overworked nameserver administrator (and you contain the damage).
Editing the zone files isn't that much harder than editing /etc/hosts,
and you don't have the bother of having to propagate the /etc/hosts
around, or do you just just use IP addresses everywhere.

>
>Another nameserver gotcha turned up a couple of months ago, when people
>decided to rename and renumber all of the "main" machines in the lab.
>The nameserver had the wrong IP address (two digits interchanged) for
>the mainest of the machines (the one with all the source on it), and 
>it took about a month to persuade the (badly overworked) administrator
>of the nameserver to correct the typo.  /etc/hosts came in very handy
>during this period.

Well, what if you sent your new (incorrect) /etc/hosts out all your
friends on the internet.  How much of a bother would it be to them
to have to incorporate this into their /etc/hosts files, and then
turn around and correct it.  And how much time is someone who missed
the correction (and someone at your end) going to spend debugging the
problem a six months from now when mail won't go through.
--
Don "Truck" Lewis                      Harris Semiconductor
Internet:  del@mlb.semi.harris.com     PO Box 883   MS 62A-028
Phone:     (407) 729-5205              Melbourne, FL  32901