[ale] gentoo

[Joseph A Knapka]

Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> 
> Stephen Turner wrote:
> 
> > well ive looked at gentoo like recommended and it doesnt look bad :)
> > however i do have a question, in configuring the dns server is this
> > only for private networks? i do not know the ip of my isp's dns
> > server,  or should i referr it to my router??
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games
> 
> Stephen -
> 
> If all you're doing is setting up a Linux machine on an
> Internet-connected network, you don't need to set up a DNS server
> yourself as long as you don't need to automate name resolution via DNS
> (as opposed to putting a host table on each machine) unless you need
> to refer to machines on your internal LAN by name.
> 
> My cable modem acts as a DHCP server looking inward towards me.  My
> NAT firewall's out-facing NIC makes a DHCP request of the cable modem
> when it boots and the firewall gets it's out-facing IP address and DNS
> addresses from that.  On my home LAN, all the IP addresses are Class C
> and static, which means that the IP addresses for the DNS server have
> to be set explicitly on each machine.
> 
> In the 10-odd years that I've been dealing with ISPs, it has been a
> trivial matter to obtain an ISP's DNS addresses from their tech
> support people.  However, the baboons at AT&T Broadband (I'm in
> Atlanta and when I call I get someone in Canada!!) not only do not
> know what the DNS addresses are, they don't really understand your
> question and/or why you'd want to know.  To get a definitive answer, I
> had to hook up a monitor to my firewall and see what the DHCP-obtained
> DNS addresses had been set to.

Why not just look at /etc/resolv.conf? The dhcp client should
stuff the server-supplied DNS addresses in there, unless
you've disabled that for some reason.
 
> If I set up the firewall to perform DHCP facing inward, I don't know
> if it would pass the DNS addresses it got from the outward-facing side
> or not.

It would if configured to do so.
 
> So, to answer your question, Stephen, your Gentoo box should be given
> the DNS addresses that your ISP provides either by calling up and
> asking them or by permitting something to obtain the DNS addresses via
> DHCP and use those.
> 
> Now, the inward-facing IP address of your router DOES need to be
> entered as the default gateway address of your internal machines.

IIRC, Stephen has a LinkSys router; it will handle all that
by magic. I just got one, paid for by my employer, since
that was the only way they'd help me diagnose my VPN
problems (I had to have a "supported" router on my home
net). I didn't really like the idea at first - I'd
become attached to and confident in my OpenBSD firewall -
but I've come to like the idea: now I have a free
PC to play with :-)
 
Cheers,

-- Joe
"I should like to close this book by sticking out any part of my neck
 which is not yet exposed, and making a few predictions about how the
 problem of quantum gravity will in the end be solved."
 --- Physicist Lee Smolin, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity"

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