Hi Alpha managers,
My original posting was:
We are currently setting up our AXP-server (OSF/1 3.0) to be the central mail
host, connecting directly to the Internet via routers and a leased line. So far,
this server has served as a stand-alone host, dedicated to running a particular
application.
Apart from configuring sendmail, is it really necessary to set up BIND, too?
Do any of you have something like a "cook-book" for doing these tasks which I
have little experience of doing myself?
------------------------------------------
Well, the conclusion is that it is necessary to set up BIND and that it appears
not be that tricky as I thought. I used the "bindsetup" programme and it was
quite straight forward. One thing puzzled me, though: Why does BIND want to
change the local hostname from for instance "axp" to a fully qualified host
name such as "axp.mydomain.mycountry"? As long as there is an alias for this
in the "hosts" file and other relevant files, it shouldn't really matter.
Thanks to the following for their useful input:
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...well, yes, you do need to set up BIND. There is a menu driven
utility (BINDSETUP). You will almost certainly want to pick up the
O'Reilly book "DNS and BIND as well.
You need to set up several config files, usually located at
/etc/namedb
xx2884_at_wepco.com Jim Esten
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"TCP/IP Network Administration" by Craig Hunt
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
ISBN 0-937175-82-X
This book covers *everything* that you will need to know about setting up
your machine for connection to the internet. In particular it covers in
great detail the DNS (BIND), sendmail, routing, network troubleshooting,
security issues, and a lot more besides.
Regards,
Ian
------------------------------- projet SOR -------------------------------
Ian Piumarta, INRIA Rocquencourt, Internet: Ian.Piumarta_at_inria.fr
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Regarding sendmail: the setup is really straightforward--just go through
the steps and answer the questions--you just can't go wrong. Only tricky
point (in my experience): when it asks you whether you want the mail to be
addressed to user_at_domain instead of user_at_machine.domain .I chose the second
because the first didn't work -- I must have done something funny but
since the second option went through OK I stayed with it.
Regarding setting up BIND: You do need one primary nameserver somewhere,
of course. It need not be the machine you're running sendmail on, though.
But your machine must have a name, registered in the relevant files of
your primary nameserver.
Hope this helps
Stam
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I'm afraid that there is not enough information to know how to answer
this.
First, do you have a reliable nameserver locally? Is the leased line
suitable for access to the DNS server?
sendmail needs to access DNS on a fairly intensive basis as it must
ask for MX records every time it sends a message and may need to make
added A queries, as well. But this does not imply that BIND must run
on that system. Just that the system need good access to a server.
If you don't feel confident that there will be good access to at least
one server at all times, one possibility is to run a caching-only
server. This will result in your system caching DNS responses to
eliminate the need to query the real server repeatedly for the same
information. This also can be done with no system specific
customization. Just put this in your named.boot file:
;
; Boot file for authoritative name server.
;
;
;type domain source host/file
;
cache . named.cache
primary 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa named.local
You may want to add a forwarders line pointing to your local
servers. This will make for better response for addresses in any zones
for which the forwarders are authoritative, but slightly slow access
to other places. This difference is probably not significant, but
there my be reliability issues should you path to root be lost.
You will also need the standard named.local:
_at_ 604800 IN SOA LOCALHOST. Postmaster.LOCALHOST. (
1 ; Serial
7200 ; refresh every 2 hours
7200 ; retry every 2 hours
12096000 ; expire in twenty weeks
86400 ) ; minimum
604800 IN NS LOCALHOST.
1 IN PTR LOCALHOST.
LOCALHOST. IN A 127.0.0.1
And, finally, a current boot.cache. Get this from the Internic.
ftp:://internic.net/domains/named.cache
R. Kevin Oberman EMAIL: koberman_at_llnl.gov
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Paul Hostrup-Jessen
Department of Electronic Data Processing
Unix system administration
Bruel & Kjaer A/S
DK-2850 Naerum
DENMARK
email: phj06_at_bk.dk
tel. : +45 45 80 78 55 + 2433 (direct dial from touch-tone telephones)
fax : +45 42 80 14 05
Received on Tue Nov 21 1995 - 10:56:40 NZDT