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Re: Too many system names



Quoting Jochen Spieker (ml@well-adjusted.de):
> Gary Roach:
> > I've been fighting a redmine installation on my jessie system for a couple
> > of weeks but have finally got it working with one minor flaw. The program
> > will only start if I use my FQDN supercrunch.quantum.
> 
> How do you "start" redmine? By opening it in a browser? What happens
> when you do that?
> 
> > The problem is that apache2 can't find the server name I have used and is
> > resorting to the dns in my router. The name of my computer in the router is
> > supercrunch.quantum. (I had to call it something) .
> 
> Where's the problem in Apache using your router's DNS? Is it just that
> the router doesn't resolve unqualified names (supercrunch without the
> domain)?

I didn't know bog-standard domestic routers ran a DNS server. I
thought they just asked the external nameservers, either set up
automatically from the ISP or manually configured if using public ones.

> > In the /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf
> > 	ServerName 127.0.0.1
> 
> Using an IP address as ServerName is odd. You have to use the hostname
> that you want to use in URLs here.

The latter seems odd, seeing as the first thing you would normally do
with a hostname is look it up and turn it into an IP address.

> If you want to call
> http://supercrunch.quantum/ you should set "ServerName
> supercrunch.quantum". You can also set a "ServerAlias supercrunch" when
> you get your DNS issues sorted out.
> 
> > The 127.0.0.1 in the default.conf file seems to be the problem but I am not
> > sure of the nature of the problem.
> 
> Me neither, because you described it insufficiently. :)
> 
> > I always get thrown for a loop when asked
> > for things like server names and application names. May be i'm a little
> > dense but I find the terms confusing.

I don't know how you have your LAN configured. I use DHCP from the
router, which assigns fixed IP#s by MAC address. That way, I can
list my own hosts in /etc/hosts and avoid needing a DNS server to
resolve their names:

127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.1.1       thishost
192.168.1.1     router
192.168.1.11    otherhosta
192.168.1.12    otherhostb
192.168.1.31    HP0C00E0    hp8000

> A hostname is just the name for a host. (Almost) anything will do. A
> fully qualified domain name (FQDN) is a hostname with a domain name at
> the end. This is actually the same as in all other URLs that you stumble
> upon, even though big sites hide many machines behind one simple name
> (like google.com).
> 
> You can register an official domain name using any of the numerous
> registrars for the various TLDs (like .com or .us). That might sound a
> little overengineered for a small home LAN but it only costs a few
> dollars a year, mostly depending on the TLD you want to use.

Agreed: overengineered.

> If you
> register example.com, you can invent any name you like, e.g.
> router.home.example.com and flurry.example.com. But you should find out
> beforehand whether you can configure your router to hand out this domain
> name to DHCP clients (or use fixed network settings which mostly
> sucks).

I don't set any domainname. The only consequence I know of is exim
complaining at boot:

Starting MTA:hostname --fqdn did not return a fully qualified name, dc_minimaldns will not work.
Please fix your /etc/hosts setup.

Were I on dialup, I might be able to see whether this has any knock-on
effect. As it is, everything just works (and exim delivers local mail/
feeds a smarthost). If it doesn't (for that reason) I shall file a bug.
BTW Bug #685045 reports the symptom, but has never been responded to.

Cheers,
David.


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