NAME¶
resolv.conf - resolver configuration file
SYNOPSIS¶
/etc/resolv.conf
DESCRIPTION¶
The
resolver is a set of routines in the C library that provide access to
the Internet Domain Name System (DNS). The resolver configuration file
contains 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.
If this file does not exist, only the name server on the local machine will be
queried; the domain name is determined from the hostname and the domain search
path is constructed from the domain name.
The different configuration options are:
- nameserver Name server IP address
- Internet address of a name server that the resolver should
query, either an IPv4 address (in dot notation), or an IPv6 address in
colon (and possibly dot) notation as per RFC 2373. Up to MAXNS
(currently 3, see <resolv.h>) name servers may be listed, one
per keyword. If there are multiple servers, the resolver library queries
them in the order listed. If no nameserver entries are present, the
default is to use the name server on the local machine. (The algorithm
used is to try a name server, and if the query times out, try the next,
until out of name servers, then repeat trying all the name servers until a
maximum number of retries are made.)
- domain 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 the local hostname returned by
gethostname(2); the domain part is taken to be everything after the
first '.'. Finally, if the hostname does not contain a domain part, the
root domain is assumed.
- search 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. This may
be changed by listing the desired domain search path following the
search keyword with spaces or tabs separating the names. Resolver
queries having fewer than ndots dots (default is 1) in them will be
attempted using each component of the search path in turn until a match is
found. For environments with multiple subdomains please read options
ndots:n below to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks and
unnecessary traffic for the root-dns-servers. Note that this process may
be slow and will generate a lot of network traffic if the servers for the
listed domains are not local, and that queries will time out if no server
is available for one of the domains.
- The search list is currently limited to six domains with a
total of 256 characters.
- sortlist
- This option allows addresses returned by
gethostbyname(3) 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. Here is an example:
sortlist 130.155.160.0/255.255.240.0 130.155.0.0
- options
- 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 _res.options.
- ndots:n
- sets a threshold for the number of dots which must appear
in a name given to res_query(3) (see resolver(3)) before an
initial absolute query will be made. The default for n is 1,
meaning that if there are any dots in a name, the name will be tried first
as an absolute name before any search list elements are appended to
it. The value for this option is silently capped to 15.
- timeout:n
- sets the amount of time the resolver will wait for a
response from a remote name server before retrying the query via a
different name server. Measured in seconds, the default is
RES_TIMEOUT (currently 5, see <resolv.h>). The value
for this option is silently capped to 30.
- attempts: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 (currently 2, see
<resolv.h>). The value for this option is silently capped to
5.
- rotate
- sets RES_ROTATE in _res.options, which causes
round robin selection of nameservers from among those listed. This has the
effect of spreading the query load 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, which
disables the modern BIND checking of incoming hostnames and mail names for
invalid characters such as underscore (_), non-ASCII, or control
characters.
- inet6
- sets RES_USE_INET6 in _res.options. This has
the effect of trying a AAAA query before an A query inside the
gethostbyname(3) function, and of mapping IPv4 responses in IPv6
"tunneled form" if no AAAA records are found but an A record set
exists.
Some programs behave strangely when this option is turned on.
- ip6-bytestring (since glibc 2.3.4)
- sets RES_USE_BSTRING in _res.options. This
causes reverse IPv6 lookups to be made using the bit-label format
described in RFC 2673; if this option is not set, then nibble format
is used.
- ip6-dotint/no-ip6-dotint (since glibc
2.3.4)
- Clear/set RES_NOIP6DOTINT in _res.options.
When this option is clear (ip6-dotint), reverse IPv6 lookups are
made in the (deprecated) ip6.int zone; when this option is set
(no-ip6-dotint), reverse IPv6 lookups are made in the
ip6.arpa zone by default. This option is set by default.
- edns0 (since glibc 2.6)
- sets RES_USE_EDNSO in _res.options. This
enables support for the DNS extensions described in RFC 2671.
- single-request (since glibc 2.10)
- sets RES_SNGLKUP in _res.options. By default,
glibc performs IPv4 and IPv6 lookups in parallel since version 2.9. Some
appliance DNS servers cannot handle these queries properly and make the
requests time out. This option disables the behavior and makes glibc
perform the IPv6 and IPv4 requests sequentially (at the cost of some
slowdown of the resolving process).
The
domain and
search keywords are mutually exclusive. If more
than one instance of these keywords is present, the last instance wins.
The
search keyword of a system's
resolv.conf file can be
overridden on a per-process basis by setting the environment variable
LOCALDOMAIN to a space-separated list of search domains.
The
options keyword of a system's
resolv.conf file can be amended
on a per-process basis by setting the environment variable
RES_OPTIONS
to a space-separated list of resolver options as explained above under
options.
The keyword and value must appear on a single line, and the keyword (e.g.,
nameserver) must start the line. The value follows the keyword,
separated by white space.
Lines that contain a semicolon (;) or hash character (#) in the first column are
treated as comments.
FILES¶
/etc/resolv.conf,
<resolv.h>
SEE ALSO¶
gethostbyname(3),
resolver(3),
hostname(7),
named(8)
Name Server Operations Guide for BIND
COLOPHON¶
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at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.