LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: David Newall <davidn@rebel.net.au>
  To  : Nick Morrison <nickm@ior.org.au>
  Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 12:49:17 +0930 (CST)

RE: Banner adverts cont.

On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, Nick Morrison wrote:
> But pinging from my windows machine, which is set to use the linux server as
> it's DNS server, results in:

You misunderstand the difference between a resolver and a domain name
server.  The former (more or less) translates a hostname into an IP
address using an unspecified mechanism.  In the old days that mechanism
was to search /etc/hosts.  Later it queried a DNS.  Currently resolvers
on real operating system can be configured to use a variety of mechanism,
and indeed to specify quite sophisticated rules for what to use and when.
The resolver runs, as a library, on part of your local application.

A DNS, on the other hand, is network software conforming to (I can't be
bothered to find out the relevant RFC).  It uses a clearly specified
protocol to translate (more or less) hostnames to IP addresses, either
by looking up the information in it's own local database, or by searching
other DNSs.  Depending on local configuration, a DNS might or might not
permit external hosts to use it, which is to say that a DNS need not
resolve addresses for any host other than the local host (but probably
most DNSs do.)

DNSs don't consult /etc/hosts.

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