From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] dns not running
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Message-Id: <20001203210809.62D03199F0@mail.cse.psu.edu>
Date: Sun,  3 Dec 2000 16:08:08 -0500
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>you always have an IP address 127.0.0.1 and running
>a dns is always a good idea as long as it implements
>a cache as per BIND.  speeds up DNS lookups.

actually, we assign no special meaning to the 127 network in our stack.
You thinking Unix?

> i've never liked ip/ipconfig.  i like the dns config
> files, but was horrified to learn that it finds the
> hostname (never documented) by ethernet address.

Dns doesn't use the ether address for anything.

The only place we connect an ethernet address and
an ip one is in dhcpd.  We use the ether address to
identify a system that's bootping or dhcping.  That's
only if you're trying to give a static address to a
system.  Since we run our systems diskless (or as close
as we can get) that's the only bit of information that
a bootping system reliably has to identify itself.

ndb/cs will use the ether address to figure out
the system name only if all of the above are true
	1) /env/sysname doesn't contain a name
	2) the ip address doesn't map to a name in the database
	3) dhcp didn't leave a name in /net/ndb