Re: domain-name option during the installation of Debian
On Sat, 8 Mar 2014 02:48:08 +0000
Martin T <m4rtntns@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> However, the question itself is simple- where and how is the domain
> name, which I inserted during the installation, used? So far it seems
> to be used only for completing the domain names.
>
>
A domain name matters for servers which serve a large number of
computers locally, and is vital across the Net. But you are right, in an
environment with at most a few workstations talking only to Internet
hosts, there's no practical use for a domain name. You are already
aware that a computer's 'domain' need have no connection with any email
domain name(s).
If a workstation is part of a network and you wish to refer to one of
the other machines, the domain name stored in the DNS resolution part
of the workstation allows you to use just the hostname. The 'D' in DNS
means that a domain *must* be involved, even in a purely local lookup.
That really is just about all it's used for in a workstation, until you
get into Samba sharing or Windows 'domain' membership.
There is also some crossover from Windows, in that many Linux users
started out on Windows, where every networked machine is either part of
a 'domain', a significantly different thing from a DNS domain but
unfortunately sharing the name, or a workgroup. A Windows 'domain' is
in fact pretty much a Kerberos realm.
Windows also, for purely commercial reasons, draws a hard distinction
between 'servers' and 'workstations'. This is not the case in Linux,
where a single computer attached to an Internet modem might run
continuously and operate a SMTP server, in which case it pretty much
must also run a local DNS server. To avoid the situation where an
additional and possibly obscure set of questions must be asked at
installation time, Linux does not have any strict demarcation between
'server' and 'workstation', and always asks the domain question to
avoid possible issues later.
It is still a bit of a scary question for new users, and although the
dialog box tries to say something along the lines of 'if you don't know
what this means, don't worry about it', it doesn't succeed very well.
And no, I can't think of a short, good explanation of domains to put
here, either.
--
Joe
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