[SWLUG] selecting a DNS domain

[Justin Mitchell]

On Fri, 2003-05-02 at 10:13, Tim Bonnell wrote:
> I've wanted to set up a DNS name server on my server at home for a while
> now. I've even read the HOWTOs and tested it (sucessfully!). However I
> always bottle out on the issue of a specifying a domain name.
If its only for internal use, why does it matter if it looks bogus ?
It may appear in some mail headers sure, but it doesnt matter, hardly
anybody ever looks, and if they do, it should be obvious that it was an
internal name&ip that cant be looked up anyway.

> I know I need to use a domain that WONT conflict with the outside world, but
> everything I come up with a) looks unbelievable (e.g. home.bogus) or b) is
> excessively long (e.g. server1.internal.mydomain.co.uk)
Dont use such a long name then, if you own mydomain, then create records
(either out in the real domain, or just privately inside your network)
that are reasonably short,   mylaptop.mydomain.com   or whatever.
Your safe that they wont clash.

Also the length of the domain is normally not an issue, as you can set
the search path on all of your machines to already include the bulk of
the domain.
eg. if your /etc/resolv.conf has 'search internal.mydomain.co.uk'

then that machine can refer to  one.internal.mydomain.co.uk as just
'one', and that will work in every program that accepts a hostname.

Hope that helps a little.