Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!pequod.cso.uiuc.edu!dorner
From: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: host name resolution under 1.0
Message-ID: <1989Sep25.210020.21790@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 25 Sep 89 21:00:20 GMT
References: <6251@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <15940@pollux.UUCP>
Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Reply-To: dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 30

In article <15940@pollux.UUCP> merlin@smu.UUCP (David Hayes) writes:
>This seems to be a problem, but for performance reasons, it really
>needs to be done this way.

Not true.  The latest UNIX resolver code does a very convenient and sensible
thing; when appending domains to a name, it drops the least significant
domain, until it reaches a domain one below the root, at which it punts.

For example, I am in domain cso.uiuc.edu.  If I utter, "zaphod.ncsa", the
resolver tries:

zaphod.ncsa.cso.uiuc.edu
zaphod.ncsa.uiuc.edu		(BINGO!)

Whereas, if I say, "bogus.ncsa", it tries

bogus.ncsa.cso.uiuc.edu
bogus.ncsa.uiuc.edu
(PUNT-it won't try bogus.ncsa.edu)

This involves no queries to root servers, and has the effect that, for
hosts in a common domain, I need only specify the domain part that differs
from my own domain.

This is appropriate behavior, and NeXT's release notes indicate that they
understand that.  When it will be fixed (1.1, anyone?) is another matter.
-- 
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu  UUCP: {convex,uunet}!uiucuxc!dorner
IfUMust:  (217) 244-1765