[Freeipa-users] IPA & hostnames. Why not use `hostname -fqdn` instead of forcing `hostname` to be fully qualified?

[Craig T]

Hi,

Server Side:
RHEL6.2
ipa-admintools-2.1.3-9.el6.x86_64
ipa-client-2.1.3-9.el6.x86_64
ipa-pki-ca-theme-9.0.3-7.el6.noarch
ipa-pki-common-theme-9.0.3-7.el6.noarch
ipa-python-2.1.3-9.el6.x86_64
ipa-server-2.1.3-9.el6.x86_64
ipa-server-selinux-2.1.3-9.el6.x86_64


Client Side Config:
Centos 6.2
ipa-client-2.1.3-9.el6.x86_64
ipa-python-2.1.3-9.el6.x86_64


Issue:
IPA (via sssd) requires that a hostname (as returned by the `hostname`
commmand) be fully qualified.

This requirement has caused us no end of grief due to ripple effects not
related to IPA, it breaks other software we use which expects hostname
to be not fully qualified.

We don't understand why IPA & sssd require that a machine's hostname be
fully qualified when `hostname --fqdn` can be used instead?

In our case we had hostname setup to be the machine name as in:

# hostname
foo
# dnsdomainname
bar.com.au
# hostname --fqdn
foo.bar.com.au

Why doesn't IPA & SSD use the value returned by `hostname --fqdn`?

Why must `hostname` itself be fully qualified when `hostname --fqdn` is
available?


Regards,

Craig