Dynamic DNS and static IP addresses

[Luis Toro]

Hello,

The DNS folks would like to have the HPUX servers dynamically update DNS whenever a change, or new server get rolled out. The DNS servers are Windows2K boxes, and the HPUX servers all have static IPs (ie., no DHCP). Typically, the network folks assign all the static IPs (for servers), and the W2K admins then update DNS. They'd prefer the HPUX servers do the update dynamically. I've read a few threads and they all reference DHCP, which we are not using on the HPUX servers. Do I need to turn DHCP on, even though I get assigned static IPs ? How can I configure the HPUX servers to do this dynamic update ?

Thank you

[Fred Ruffet]

I imagine that what they mean is to tell HP to look at DNS before /etc/hosts. This could be done by editing /etc/nsswitch.conf (or using sam)

Regards,

Fred

[Luis Toro]

No. We've already configured resolv.conf and nsswitch.conf.

They're inquiring about Dynamic DNS updating, which from my rudimentary understanding is the ability of the DNS client (in this case HPUX servers) to update the DNS zones (on W2K servers) once an ip and hostname gets configured on the client. The threads I have read reference DHCP. But I am not using DHCP since the IP/hostnames on the HPUX servers are static, and manually assigned/configured.
Hope this clarifies my initial question.

Thanks

[Geoff Wild]

I don't understand...

We run Dynamic DNS here - but don't have Static IP's update - what for? They only need to update once - all you do is run a nsupdate command.....

That said, you would have to install Bind 9 (on your HP-UX servers ) and set allow update on the W2K servers to the ip's of all your static HP-UX servers...

Rgds...Geoff

[Jeff_Traigle · Accepted solution]

I think the Windows guys are trying to find a magic way to get out of work they don't want to do myself. :)

It seems to me that they are basically requesting that the HP servers use DHCP to get an address so they don't have to do anything. As far as I know, the only way to do DDNS is to use DHCP because that's the only way any communication transpires. (There's no communication when doing static addresses... the server knows it's address and doesn't ask for nor report it to anything else.) Of course, they could always configure the static addresses in DHCP to be assigned to a specific NIC, but that still keeps them updating things on their end and relying on DHCP to get the server's address to it. For servers, it's not generally considered a good thing, in my experience, to use DHCP and I'm surprised the Windows guys would even suggest such a thing regardless of the manual stuff they have to do maintaining the static addresses in DNS... or are they doing exactly that for their Windows servers?

[Thomas Bianco]

DNS is not designed to support Static IPs dynamically. tell your windows admins to quit being lazy, having them update a static record once a year is better for the both of you.

you can force it, thou. here is a list of utilities provided by DynDNS.ORG
http://www.dyndns.org/services/dyndns/clients.html
any one of those should work

[Lee Hundley]

I'll second (or third..fourth?) the notion of the windows admins being rather lazy. This thread may help though...

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=593186

[Thomas Bianco]

i'm a full time Windows admin, Part time Linux admin and day labor HPUX admin.

i'm all for automation, and think self configuring systems are the greatest, but that's motivated by my lazyness.

i get frustrated because i have to tie two shoes EVERY DAY! i've been known to spend hours writing a script to automate a 10 minute job.

one unique thing is that my lazyness is not restricted to my own work. i hate wasteful processes, even if the person who is doing them doesn't mind.

ok, windows DNS is not the easiest to batch change, but we've already spent more time collectivly then the windows admins would have spent to update the records. your team is going to spend more time yet configuring X unix boxen to remind the DNS server of their existance Y times a day, and you'll still have Z records that need to be corrected. all this Vs, 1 minute to change the DNS table.

X*Y*Z>1

[Luis Toro]

Thanks for your replies.

I figured that it would be back asswards to turn mess around with DHCP on HPUX servers with static IP's. Especially given the fact that we don't deploy these systems on a frequent basis. I do use DHCP on my HP workstation and find that when the lease expires I have to go through this manual effort to get the workstation up and running
( updating hosts file, netconf ), so I would not want to do that on production servers (unless I'm just not configuring DHCP correctly on my workstations running 11.i).

THanks again

[Jeff_Traigle]

Just a quick follow-up that you alluded to in your last comment about your DHCP workstation... I tried putting my workstation at home on DHCP and using DDNS. What your Windows guys wanted wouldn't work anyway. HP-UX doesn't appear to send the hostname to the DHCP server so no DNS changes are made when the system gets its address.