[gentoo-user] domainname command shows blank - NIS/YP domain name?

[gentoo-user] domainname command shows blank - NIS/YP domain name?

[Stroller]

Ok, this question comes about because I noticed that I manually have  
to set $mydomain in Postfix. I'm about to set up Samba, too, and  
thinking that I might have to manually set the domain name in that,  
too, I thought to investigate this. Surely Postfix should get its  
hostname & domainname from the system itself, right?

$ hostname
hex
$ dnsdomainname
stroller.uk.eu.org
$ domainname
(none)
$ domainname -v
getdomainname()=`(none)'
(none)
$

This mention of getdomainname agrees with the comments in Postfix's  
main.cf:

# The myhostname parameter specifies the internet hostname of this
# mail system. The default is to use the fully-qualified domain name
# from gethostname(). $myhostname is used as a default value for many
# other configuration parameters.

`man domainname` tells me that `domainname` should in particular "show  
or set the system's NIS/YP domain name".

Can anyone explain the significance of this, please?

/etc/conf.d/net.example suggests that "it's rare that you would need  
to" set a NIS domainname, "but you can anyway", and the Gentoo Linux  
x86 Handbook [1] says "if you don't know what [a NIS domain] is, then  
you don't have one".

I guess that a typical desktop system might use ssmtp and not need  
either postfix or a NIS domainname, however I'm still confused. I  
guess the best question I can ask is why Postfix might choose to use  
this apparently-less-common config to set its hostname? I really feel  
like I must be missing out. It's not a massive hardship to set  
$mydomain manually in Postfix on several boxes, it just seems like I  
ideally shouldn't have to. Is there anyone who can help clarify for me?

Many thanks in advance for all suggestions,

Stroller.



[1] http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=8#doc_chap2

Re: [gentoo-user] domainname command shows blank - NIS/YP domain name?

[Oli Schmidt]

On Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:22:47 +0000, Stroller
<stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
> Ok, this question comes about because I noticed that I manually have  
> to set $mydomain in Postfix. I'm about to set up Samba, too, and  
> thinking that I might have to manually set the domain name in that,  
> too, I thought to investigate this. Surely Postfix should get its  
> hostname & domainname from the system itself, right?
> 
> $ hostname
> hex
> $ dnsdomainname
> stroller.uk.eu.org
> $ domainname
> (none)
> $ domainname -v
> getdomainname()=`(none)'
> (none)
> $
> 
> This mention of getdomainname agrees with the comments in Postfix's  
> main.cf:
> 
> # The myhostname parameter specifies the internet hostname of this
> # mail system. The default is to use the fully-qualified domain name
> # from gethostname(). $myhostname is used as a default value for many
> # other configuration parameters.
> 
> `man domainname` tells me that `domainname` should in particular "show  
> or set the system's NIS/YP domain name".
> 
> Can anyone explain the significance of this, please?
> 
> /etc/conf.d/net.example suggests that "it's rare that you would need  
> to" set a NIS domainname, "but you can anyway", and the Gentoo Linux  
> x86 Handbook [1] says "if you don't know what [a NIS domain] is, then  
> you don't have one".
> 
> I guess that a typical desktop system might use ssmtp and not need  
> either postfix or a NIS domainname, however I'm still confused. I  
> guess the best question I can ask is why Postfix might choose to use  
> this apparently-less-common config to set its hostname? I really feel  
> like I must be missing out. It's not a massive hardship to set  
> $mydomain manually in Postfix on several boxes, it just seems like I  
> ideally shouldn't have to. Is there anyone who can help clarify for me?

Hi

The only way found for me was echo the domainname on startup onto proc

echo domainname.ch > /proc/sys/kernel/domainname

Does that work for you too ?

Oliver