Re: domain-name option during the installation of Debian
On Sat 08 Mar 2014 at 09:25:54 +0000, Joe wrote:
> 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.
You characterise the d-i domain question well. Fortunately, it doesn't
matter for 99% of users if the response is empty or a name (example.com)
is made up. For the other 1% it will depend on what some of their
software does with the 127.0.1.1 line in /etc/hosts.
With a hostname of debian and no domain name /etc/hosts is
127.0.1.1 debian
Exim4 (and, I believe, postfix) will have an /etc/mailname with the line
debian
With a domain name of example.com the line in /etc/mailname is
127.0.1.1 debian.example.com debian
and in /etc/mailname it is
debian.example.com
What is in /etc/mailname is used by exim4 to qualify addresses without
anything after the @. Neither debian nor debian.example.com route so
sending and/or receiving mail could be problematic. However, most users
have an MUA which uses an ISP smarthost to send, so the problem is not
encountered. Even using localhost:25 the MUA takes care of the from
address, so again the problem is not seen.
Exim4 will also HELO/EHLO with debian or debian.example.com but most
ISPs accept any old rubbish for that.
All in all d-i does a reasonable job in the domain name question
section. Presumably anyone requiring bells and whistles will deal with
it after the install.
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