Manual Pages

Table of Contents


na_resolv.conf - configuration file for domain name system resolver




The resolver configuration file contains information that is read by the resolver routines. The file is designed to be human readable and contains a list of keywords with values that provide various types of resolver information. Semicolon (';') or pound ('#') starts comment. So, any character after `;' or `#' is ignored until the next line. Lines in bad formats are ignored entirely.

The different configuration options are:

nameserver address
This specifies the Internet address (in dot notation) of a name server that the resolver should query. Up to 3 name servers may be listed, one per keyword. If there are multiple servers, the resolver queries them in the order listed. When a query to a name server on the list times out, the resolver will move to the next one until it gets to the bottom of the list. It will then restart from the top retrying all the name servers until a maximum number of retries are made.

search domain-list
This specifies the search list for host-name lookup. The search list is normally determined from the local domain name; by default, it begins with the local domain name, then successive parent domains that have at least two components in their names. This may be changed by listing the desired domain search path following the search keyword with spaces or tabs separating the names. Most resolver queries will be attempted using each component of the search path in turn until a match is found. Note that this process may be slow and will generate a lot of network traffic if the servers for the listed domains are not local, and that queries will time out if no server is available for one of the domains.






na_setup(1), na_rc(5), RFC 1034, RFC 1035

Table of Contents