DNS setup

[Allan Pincus]

Hi,

I'm new to setting up a DNS server, so here's what I did:

I followed the process of configuring DNS server that I have in a HP text. It looks like 'named' is running on the server properly.

I setup my client with resolv.conf pointing at my nameserver. I setup my client's /etc/nsswitch.conf with the line:

hosts: dns files

Then, when I use nslookup on a client to report the IP address of a host that is NOT in my local /etc/hosts file, it reports the correct IP address, so it looks like everything is working.

But when I try and automount the same host, I get a "not found" error.

Telnet and ftp work fine. Just not the automount process.

Also - does anyone know if hostnames **MUST** be 8 chars or less for DNS to work? Longer hostnames seem to cause a problem, too.

Thanks!!

- Allan

[Jordan Bean]

Did you restart the automounter after updating resolv.conf and nsswitch.conf on both hosts? I don't recall if the automounter configures its resolver at startup or on demand per mount.

[Paul R. Dittrich]

Allan, some questions for you:

1. Can you *manually* mount your NFS drives?

2. What does nfsstat say?

3. What does rpcinfo say?

and for later:

4. Can you use AutoFS instead of older automount?

I don't think your problem is DNS-related at all.

HTH,
Paul

[Timo Ruiter]

DNS will work with hostnames longer than 8 characters (e.g. the URL www.lordoftherings.com is resolved this way), so no problem there.
Can you tell if the host you mount your directories from and the host you mount directories on are both listed in the DNS with a proper 'reverse lookup' entry? If this is not the case please fix it and retry. (Test with nslookup 'hostname' which should give the right IP-address, and nslookup 'IP-address' which should give you the right hostname again).

Timo

[Systeemingenieurs Infoc · Accepted solution]

hi allen,

browse to http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1035.txt
and go to "2.3.1. Preferred name syntax".
This explains how a dns-name should be constructed.

Important is not to use underscores.