I don't think we disagree there. The user decides whether search is used by
either setting the search keyword in resolv.conf or by configuring his DHCP
client (dhclient.conf) to fetch the domain-search option from the DHCP
server.
Thats why there really is no need to misuse ndots option as "on/off switch"
for searching.

On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 2:19 PM, <u-uy74@aetey.se> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 25, 2015 at 02:06:29PM +0100, Jan Broer wrote:
> > I don't think it is a good idea do default to ndots=0. This would
> > essentially break search for systems where resolv.conf values are managed
> > by the DHCP server. DHCP expects search to work when there is at least
> one
> > entry in the domain-search option returned by the DHCP server. There is
> no
> > DHCP option for configuring ndots (see
> > http://linux.die.net/man/5/dhcp-options) and therefore search would not
> > work in these configurations when ndots defaults to 0.
>
> To be fair, it is not the dhcp server who generates the resolv.conf but
> the tools on the computer itself (the dhcp client implementation).
> IOW it is the administrator of the computer who decides what resolv.conf
> shall look like, even if she/he possibly uses certain data from dhcp.
>
> Rune
>
>