DNS suffix

[Derek Broughton]

marc wrote:

> Brian McKee wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 4:56 AM, marc<gmane at auxbuss.com> wrote:
>>> I've arrived at a Windows site where the local DNS requires the Windows
>>> clients to add "DNS suffix for this connection" -- 'vt' in this case.
>>>
>>> If I try to ping a local server by name, ping fred, the ping fails. When
>>> I add the "DNS suffix", fred.vt', the ping works -- the correct server
>>> is being pinged.
... 
>>> How do you configure networking to take account of the "DNS suffix"?
>> Simply add the .vt to everything....  or, in /etc/resolv.conf add 'search
>> .vt'
> 
> I already has resolvconf installed for the dns-nameservers
> directive in /etc/network/interfaces, so I added a dns-search vt (no
> dot) directive and all is well. Odd I'd never come across this before,
> but you live and learn.

You don't come across it much, because places that require such things 
usually have their DHCP servers _provide_ them.  When you connect to the 
network, the DHCP server is capable of providing much more than just your IP 
number, and in this case it should be returning a search list containing 
"vt" as well as your IP, and the DNS server IP and possibly things like WINS 
servers.
-- 
derek