Namserver problems in Sun OS 4.0.3

[Mark Benard]

We have several Suns which are running OS 4.0.3 and which are nameserver
clients to another system (which is not a Sun) we have.  Recently we
noticed that when those Suns make a nameserver query (generated by mail,
rlogin, or nslookup), they append the local domain name "cs.tulane.edu",
even if the name being queried is fully qualified, such as uunet.uu.net.
It all works out in the end, since when the query on
"uunet.uu.net.cs.tulane.edu" fails, the Suns try
"uunet.uu.net.tulane.edu", and finally "uunet.uu.net".  But this generates
a lot of extra nameserver queries which are a nuisance.

I asked Sun technical support about this and was told, yes, this is a bug
that will be reported.  Meanwhile their only suggestion was to put a null
domain name in /etc/resolv.conf and use only fully qualified domain names.
If I do this, mail seems to work out ok, but in order to rlogin to "host"
from a Sun, "host" has to be a fully qualified domain name or must be in
the YP database.  But to put all hosts on campus in every YP database is
impossible;  that's why we have a nameserver.  And it is even more
impossible to convince users that they must always use fully qualified
domain names for campus hosts.

Does anyone know of another solution that I can use?

On a similar topic, I noticed that MX-ing did not seem to work on these
Suns.  I asked a local Sun software support person and he said that he was
not sure, but he thought that MX-ing was not supported in Sun OS 4.0.3
sendmail and that there might be a fix for it in a named fix kit available
on uunet.uu.net.  Can anyone give me a definitive answer on that?

Thanks,
Mark

Mark Benard
Department of Computer Science     INTERNET & BITNET: mb at cs.tulane.edu
Tulane University                  USENET:   rex!mb
New Orleans, LA 70118