This feature would make it easier to run multiple nameservers on a single
machine without their coming into conflict, a problem that was encountered
in Ubuntu Desktop which introduced a dnsmasq process controlled by
NetworkManager (
As I wrote in comment #46 on that bug report, OpenBSD and Mac OS X already
have this feature. Here's an extract from the OpenBSD resolv.conf man page.
nameserver IPv4 address (in dot notation) or IPv6 address (in hex-and-
colon notation) of a name server that the resolver should
query. Scoped IPv6 address notation is accepted as well
(see inet6(4) for details). A non-standard port may be specified
using [host]:port syntax.
That would be "[8.8.8.8]:53" for Google's nameserver. The syntax for OS
X is "address.port", which would be "8.8.8.8.53" for Google's nameserver.
One can also give a "port" option to select the port for nameserver options
lacking a port number.
We could adopt one of these syntaxes or devise another one that was
entirely backward compatible.
I looked at the eglibc source code and it would not be hard to implement
this feature.
Once can assume, however, that even if we came up with a patch today it
would be years before the feature became generally available.
--
Thomas