[lug] set host name

[Hugh Brown]

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005, Dean Brissinger wrote:

> On Tuesday, December 06, 2005 6:36 PM Hugh Brown wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 19:00 -0500, Gordon Golding wrote:
> >> Setting the host name.
> >> When I look on the internet, there are so many variations, I figured
> >> I'd ask for input.
> >>
> >> Is it that easy?  Add "myhost<TAB>" before localhost.localdomain?
> >
> > It's sometimes that easy, but then other programs (notably mysql)
> > will wig out because they are expecting 'localhost.localdomain' or
> > 'localhost' to be the first hostname listed for 127.0.0.1.
> >
> > Experiment.  I remember spending a good chunk of time with developers
> > using the getHostBy* functions in Java because it was returning
> > something unexpected.
>
> Agreed.  I had java developers complain because some machines resolved
> to a FQDN and others resolved to the short name.  This broke software
> interestingly enough.
>

My memory says that we were set to do dns off the server, but Java was
doing interesting things (e.g. ignoring /etc/nsswitch.conf).  It might
also have been inconsistent use of the getHostBy* functions by developers.

I think in my case the software was breaking because an ACL was being
created that relied on the function.

Hugh