Where does an ubuntu machine get it's doamin name from

[stan]

I need to change the domain on all of the machines at work by Friday. I had
a contractor working on these machines and he "helped". That is he put
shortt names in /etc/hostname, and /etc/mailname. This is NOT what I asked
him to do, but it is what I found. My first thought is just to put the new
FQDN in there, but this has my curiosity stired up. Where are these
machines currently getting thier doamins from? They are not running NIS, so
that can't be it.


-- 
One of the main causes of the fall of the roman empire was that, lacking
zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C
programs.