Re: domain names, was: hostname

[Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk>]

On Thu 22 Mar 2018 at 12:44:53 -0500, David Wright wrote:

[...]

> Here are my points, as it's a month since I made them. I didn't
> quite answer the question as posed.
> 
> --✄------
> 
> > that as well as being asked to supply a hostname I've also been asked
> > to supply a domain value.
> >
> > What, on a home LAN, is that used for?
> 
> Nothing, with the possible exceptions of:
> 
> . avoiding this message at boot up:
>   Mon Feb 19 04:58:38 2018: [....] Starting MTA:hostname --fqdn did not return a fully qualified name,
>   Mon Feb 19 04:58:38 2018: dc_minimaldns will not work. Please fix your /etc/hosts setup.
> 
> . satisfying a broken smarthost¹,
> 
> . causing some discussion here.
> 
> --✄------
> 
> My last point may become less true over time because, as I already
> just posted, there is now an authoritative answer: If you don't
> know what to put, put home, corp, or mail, as you wish. They are
> guaranteed never to become TLDs in the future.

The d-i prompt says:

 > The domain name is the part of your Internet address to the right of your
 > host name.  It is often something that ends in .com, .net, .edu, or .org.
 > If you are setting up a home network, you can make something up, but make
 > sure you use the same domain name on all your computers.

There you are: a home user can just invent something. mybrilliantdomain.com
would do. Why agonise over it.

Whatever is chosen goes into /etc/hosts.

A long time ago, the advice was:

 > Please enter your domain name or leave this field empty if you don't have
 > a domain.
 
> Currently I have an empty string. When I next reorganise my network
> here to include bridging, I might consider using .home (it's the
> most appropriate). It affords me no particular advantage as far as
> I can see, but I remain open to persuasion that it has some use.
> What exactly, though? (Still a genuine question, but keep off email
> or we're in danger of getting in a loop.)

An empty string is fine. Just do it; you will be happy with it.

> I'm not convinced that I, and many in my situation, would be better
> off running a mail server rather than having an organisation run a
> smarthost to do it on my behalf. (They also take care of incoming mail
> by running an IMAP server.)

Nobody has really tried to convince you that running a mail server is
better for *you*.

(You actually do run a mail server but use it for relaying, not sending
directly. Greg Wooledge's posts are very informative. Please try to see
the distinctions).

> I think the political discussion arises here because people don't
> recognise that just contributing to this list makes one unusual in
> itself (and I include myself in that). There may be divers diverse
> reasons to run a mail server, but count me out along with many others.

Ben Finney's post really got to you, didn't it?

  https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2018/03/msg00738.html

-- 
Brian.