Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!decwrl!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: sendmail.cf
Summary: read resolver(4)
Message-ID: <72776@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 20 Oct 90 18:18:47 GMT
References: <9010191244.AA12309@asmus1.genetics.uga.edu>
Sender: guest@sgi.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 26

In article <9010191244.AA12309@asmus1.genetics.uga.edu>, stewart%gandal.dnet@ASMUS1.GENETICS.UGA.EDU writes:
> ...
> I am also interested in knowing how to make the iris utilize a nameserver
> without this hanging NeWS whenever the nameserver is down.  I was under
> the impression from conversations with the hotline that this would be
> fixed in 3.3.  Apparently not.


`man gethostbyname` and several other man pages direct you to the
resolver(4) man page.  There you can read how to tell the system what to do
if the various name services are unhappy.  If you chose to check the
BIND/named/DNS service before your local host file, then name service
clients including the news_server will still have to wait long enough to
distinquish a slow nameserver from a dead one.  Instead, if you put your
local /etc/hosts first, keep that file minimal, and tell the system to keep
looking if it cannot find the answer, then you may get what you want.

You can independently configure the way the system resolves names for
individual users, for individual programs, and for all programs by setting
evironment variables, calling functions, or by changing
/usr/etc/resolv.conf.

It is as fixed as it can be, given the nature of the beast.


Vernon Schryver,    vjs@sgi.com