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