RESOLV.CONF(5)             Linux Programmer's Manual            RESOLV.CONF(5)



NAME
       resolv.conf - resolver configuration file

SYNOPSIS
       /etc/resolv.conf

DESCRIPTION
       The  ________ is a set of routines in the C library that provide access
       to the Internet Domain Name System (DNS).  The  resolver  configuration
       file  contains  information  that  is read by the resolver routines the
       first time they are invoked by a process.  The file is designed  to  be
       human readable and contains a list of keywords with values that provide
       various types of resolver information.

       If this file doesn't exist the only name server to be queried  will  be
       on  the local machine; the domain name is determined from the host name
       and the domain search path is constructed from the domain name.

       The different configuration options are:

       nameserver Name server IP address
              Internet address (in dot notation) of a  name  server  that  the
              resolver   should   query.    Up  to  MAXNS  (currently  3,  see
              __________) name servers may be listed,  one  per  keyword.   If
              there are multiple servers, the resolver library queries them in
              the order listed.  If no nameserver  entries  are  present,  the
              default  is  to  use the name server on the local machine.  (The
              algorithm used is to try a name server, and if the  query  times
              out, try the next, until out of name servers, then repeat trying
              all the name servers until  a  maximum  number  of  retries  are
              made.)

       domain Local domain name.
              Most  queries  for  names within this domain can use short names
              relative to the local domain.  If no domain  entry  is  present,
              the  domain  is  determined from the local host name returned by
              gethostname(3); the domain part is taken to be everything  after
              the  first  '.'.   Finally,  if the host name does not contain a
              domain part, the root domain is assumed.

       search Search list for host-name lookup.
              The search list is normally determined  from  the  local  domain
              name;  by default, it contains only the local domain name.  This
              may be changed by listing the desired domain search path follow-
              ing the ______ keyword with spaces or tabs separating the names.
              Resolver queries having fewer than _____ dots (default is 1)  in
              them  will  be attempted using each component of the search path
              in turn until a match is found.  For environments with  multiple
              subdomains  please  read  options ndots:_ below to avoid man-in-
              the-middle attacks and unnecessary  traffic  for  the  root-dns-
              servers.  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 avail-
              able for one of the domains.

              The search list is currently limited to six domains with a total
              of 256 characters.

       sortlist
              Sortlist  allows  addresses  returned  by gethostbyname(3) to be
              sorted.  A sortlist is specified by IP  address  netmask  pairs.
              The  netmask  is optional and defaults to the natural netmask of
              the net.  The IP address and optional network  pairs  are  sepa-
              rated by slashes.  Up to 10 pairs may be specified.  E.g.,
                  sortlist 130.155.160.0/255.255.240.0 130.155.0.0

       options
              Options  allows  certain internal resolver variables to be modi-
              fied.  The syntax is

                     options ______ ___

              where ______ is one of the following:

              debug  sets RES_DEBUG in ____________.

              ndots:_
                     sets a threshold for the number of dots which must appear
                     in  a name given to res_query(3) (see resolver(3)) before
                     an _______ ________ _____ will be made.  The default  for
                     _ is 1, meaning that if there are any dots in a name, the
                     name will be tried first as an absolute name  before  any
                     ______ ____ elements are appended to it.

              timeout:_
                     sets  the  amount  of  time  the resolver will wait for a
                     response from a remote name server  before  retrying  the
                     query  via a different name server.  Measured in seconds,
                     the default is RES_TIMEOUT (currently 5, see __________).

              attempts:_
                     sets  the  number of times the resolver will send a query
                     to its name servers before giving  up  and  returning  an
                     error   to  the  calling  application.   The  default  is
                     RES_DFLRETRY (currently 2, see __________).

              rotate sets RES_ROTATE in ____________, which causes round robin
                     selection  of  nameservers from among those listed.  This
                     has the effect of spreading  the  query  load  among  all
                     listed  servers,  rather  than having all clients try the
                     first listed server first every time.

              no-check-names
                     sets RES_NOCHECKNAME in ____________, which disables  the
                     modern  BIND  checking  of  incoming  host names and mail
                     names for invalid characters such as underscore (_), non-
                     ASCII, or control characters.

              inet6  sets  RES_USE_INET6 in ____________.  This has the effect
                     of trying a AAAA query before an A query inside the geth-
                     ostbyname(3)  function,  and of mapping IPv4 responses in
                     IPv6 "tunneled form" if no AAAA records are found but  an
                     A record set exists.

                     Some programs behave strangely when this option is turned
                     on.

       The ______ and ______ keywords are mutually exclusive.   If  more  than
       one instance of these keywords is present, the last instance wins.

       The  ______ keyword of a system's ___________ file can be overridden on
       a per-process basis by setting the environment variable LOCALDOMAIN  to
       a space-separated list of search domains.

       The  _______ keyword of a system's ___________ file can be amended on a
       per-process basis by setting the environment variable RES_OPTIONS to  a
       space-separated  list  of  resolver  options  as  explained above under
       options.

       The keyword and value must appear on a single  line,  and  the  keyword
       (e.g., nameserver) must start the line.  The value follows the keyword,
       separated by white space.

FILES
       ________________, __________

SEE ALSO
       gethostbyname(3), resolver(3), hostname(7), named(8)
       Name Server Operations Guide for BIND

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 2.77 of the Linux  _________  project.   A
       description  of  the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



4th Berkeley Distribution         2004-10-31                    RESOLV.CONF(5)