NAME
resolv.conf - resolver configuration file
SYNOPSIS
/etc/resolv.conf
DESCRIPTION
The resolver is a set of routines in the C library that provide access to the Internet Domain Name System (DNS). The resolver configuration file contains information that is read by the resolver routines the first time they are invoked by a process. The file is designed to be human readable and contains a list of keywords with values that provide various types of resolver information.
On a normally configured system this file should not be necessary. The only name server to be queried will be on the local machine; the domain name is determined from the hostname and the domain search path is constructed from the domain name.
The different configuration options are:
nameserver Name server IP address | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Internet address (in dot notation) of a name server that the resolver should query. Up to MAXNS (currently 3, see <resolv.h>) name servers may be listed, one per keyword. If there are multiple servers, the resolver library queries them in the order listed. If no nameserver entries are present, the default is to use the name server on the local machine. (The algorithm used is to try a name server, and if the query times out, try the next, until out of name servers, then repeat trying all the name servers until a maximum number of retries are made.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
domain Local domain name. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Most queries for names within this domain can use short names relative to the local domain. If no domain entry is present, the domain is determined from the local hostname returned by gethostname(2); the domain part is taken to be everything after the first '.'. Finally, if the hostname does not contain a domain part, the root domain is assumed. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
search Search list for host-name lookup. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The search list is normally determined from the local domain name; by default, it contains only the local domain name. This may be changed by listing the desired domain search path following the search keyword with spaces or tabs separating the names. Resolver queries having fewer than ndots dots (default is 1) in them will be attempted using each component of the search path in turn until a match is found. For environments with multiple subdomains please read options ndots:n below to avoid man-in-the-middle attacks and unnecessary traffic for the root-dns-servers. Note that this process may be slow and will generate a lot of network traffic if the servers for the listed domains are not local, and that queries will time out if no server is available for one of the domains. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The search list is currently limited to six domains with a total of 256 characters. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
sortlist | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This option allows addresses returned by
gethostbyname(3)
to be sorted.
A sortlist is specified by IP-address-netmask pairs.
The netmask is
optional and defaults to the natural netmask of the net.
The IP address
and optional network pairs are separated by slashes.
Up to 10 pairs may
be specified.
Here is an example:
sortlist 130.155.160.0/255.255.240.0 130.155.0.0 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
options | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Options allows certain internal resolver variables to be modified.
The syntax is
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The search keyword of a systems resolv.conf file can be overridden on a per-process basis by setting the environment variable LOCALDOMAIN to a space-separated list of search domains.
The options keyword of a systems resolv.conf file can be amended on a per-process basis by setting the environment variable RES_OPTIONS to a space-separated list of resolver options as explained above under options.
The keyword and value must appear on a single line, and the keyword (e.g., nameserver) must start the line. The value follows the keyword, separated by white space.
FILES
/etc/resolv.conf, <resolv.h>
SEE ALSO
gethostbyname(3), resolver(3), hostname(7), named(8) Name Server Operations Guide for BIND
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.23 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.