DNS client configuration file

The resolver configuration file is the only file you need to configure to implement a DNS client. Here is a sample file:

   ;
   ;       Sample /etc/resolv.conf
   ;
   domain           rivers.mynet.COM
   search           mynet.COM
   nameserver       10.0.118.1
   nameserver       10.0.246.25
   sortlist         10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0 10.0.246.0
   hostresorder	 bind local
   options	ndots:2

• domain specifies the current zone. It is appended to each query name that does not contain a period. For example, volga would be appended to rivers.mynet.COM to form the query volga.rivers.mynet.COM.

• search specifies a list of possible zones to query. This list, if present, over-rides the local domain.

• nameserver specifies the IP address of the server to be queried. You can have up to three nameserver entries in this file.

• sortlist specifies the IP address/netmask pairs of one or more networks. When no netmask is given, the default is assumed. When DNS returns data from a search, those records matching the sortlist are displayed first, followed by those that do not.

• hostresorder specifies which databases should be searched and in what order. Possible values are bind, nis (for Network Information Service), and local, for /etc/hosts.

• options indicates, with the ndots keyword, the number of dots needed in an address before an absolute address search is performed. The default value is one, meaning that any name entered containing one dot will be searched absolutely before the name service appends any values found in the domain list. In the example above, the name service would always append domains to any name containing 0 or 1 dots, but would try to resolve the absolute address with names containing two or more dots.

  options may also set dubugging to on, if the debug keyword is present.

For more information on file format and usage, see resolver(SFF).