illumos: manual page: resolv.conf.5

RESOLV.CONF(5) File Formats and Configurations RESOLV.CONF(5)

NAME

resolv.conf - resolver configuration file

SYNOPSIS

/etc/resolv.conf

DESCRIPTION

The resolver is a set of routines that provide access to the Internet
Domain Name System. See resolver(3RESOLV). resolv.conf is a configuration
file that contains the 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.

The resolv.conf file contains the following configuration directives:

nameserver
Specifies the IPv4 or IPv6 Internet address of a
name server that the resolver is to query. Up to
MAXNS name servers may be listed, one per keyword.
See <resolv.h>. If there are multiple servers, the
resolver library queries them in the order listed.
If no name server entries are present, the
resolver library queries the name server on the
local machine. The resolver library follows the
algorithm to try a name server until the query
times out. It then tries the name servers that
follow, until each query times out. It repeats all
the name servers until a maximum number of retries
are made.

domain
Specifies the 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
sysinfo(2) or from gethostname(3C). (Everything
after the first `.' is presumed to be the domain
name.) If the host name does not contain a domain
part, the root domain is assumed. You can use the
LOCALDOMAIN environment variable to override the
domain name.

search
The 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. You can change the default behavior
by listing the desired domain search path
following the search keyword, with spaces or tabs
separating the names. Most resolver queries will
be attempted using each component of the search
path in turn until a match is found. This process
may be slow and will generate a lot of network
traffic if the servers for the listed domains are
not local. Queries will time out if no server is
available for one of the domains.

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

sortlistaddresslist
Allows addresses returned by the libresolv-
internal gethostbyname() 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 separated by slashes. Up to 10
pairs may be specified. For example:

sortlist 130.155.160.0/255.255.240.0 130.155.0.0

options
Allows certain internal resolver variables to be
modified. The syntax is

options option ...

where option is one of the following:

debug
Sets RES_DEBUG in the
_res.options field.

ndots:n
Sets a threshold floor for the
number of dots which must appear
in a name given to res_query()
before an initial absolute (as-
is) query is performed. See
resolver(3RESOLV). The default
value for n is 1, which means
that if there are any dots in a
name, the name is tried first as
an absolute name before any
search list elements are
appended to it.

timeout:n
retrans:n
Sets the amount of time the
resolver will wait for a
response from a remote name
server before retrying the query
by means of a different name
server. Measured in seconds,
the default is RES_TIMEOUT. See
<resolv.h>. The timeout and
retrans values are the starting
point for an exponential back
off procedure where the timeout
is doubled for every retransmit
attempt.

attempts:n
retry:n
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. See <resolv.h>.

rotate
Sets RES_ROTATE in _res.options.
The name servers are queried
round-robin from among those
listed. The query load is spread
among all listed servers, rather
than having all clients try the
first listed server first every
time.

no-check-names
Sets RES_NOCHECKNAME in
_res.options. This 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
_res.options. In the Solaris
BIND port, this has no effect on
gethostbyname(3NSL). To retrieve
IPv6 addresses or IPv4
addresses, use
getaddrinfo(3SOCKET) instead of
setting inet6.

The domain and search keywords are mutually exclusive. If more than one
instance of these keywords is present, the last instance takes
precedence.

You can override the search keyword of the system resolv.conf file on a
per-process basis by setting the environment variable LOCALDOMAIN to a
space-separated list of search domains.

You can amend the options keyword of the system resolv.conf file on a
per-process basis by setting the environment variable RES_OPTIONS to a
space-separated list of resolver options.

The keyword and value must appear on a single line. Start the line with
the keyword, for example, nameserver, followed by the value, separated by
white space.

FILES

/etc/resolv.conf

ATTRIBUTES

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

FILES

ATTRIBUTES

SEE ALSO