[Freeipa-users] FreeIPA and FQDN requirements

[Bruno Henrique Barbosa]

Hello everyone, 

I'm running through an issue where an application needs its server's hostname to be in short name format, such as "server" and not "server.example.com". When I started deploying FreeIPA in the very beginning of this year, I remember I couldn't install freeipa-client with a bare "ipa-client install", because of this: 

____________ 

[root at server ~] # hostname 
server 
[root at server ~]# hostname -f 
server.example.com 
[root at server ~]# ipa-client-install 
Discovery was successful! 
Hostname: server.example.com 
Realm: EXAMPLE.COM 
DNS Domain: example.com 
IPA Server: ipa01.example.com 
Base DN: dc=example,dc=com 

Continue to configure the system with these values? [no] yes 
User authorized to enroll computers: admin 
Synchronizing time with KDC... 
Unable to sync time with IPA NTP Server, assuming the time is in sync. Please check that port 123 UDP is opened. 
Password for admin at EXAMPLE.COM: 
Joining realm failed: The hostname must be fully-qualified: server 
Installation failed. Rolling back changes. 
IPA client is not configured on this system. 

________________ 

So, using the short name as hostname didn't work for install, I then make it like "ipa-client install --hostname=`hostname -f` --mkhomedir -N", and it installs and works like a charm, BUT it updates the machine's hostname to FQDN. 

What I tested and, at first, worked: after deploying and ipa-client installation with those parameters which work, renaming the machine back to a short name AT FIRST is not causing any problems. I can login with my ssh rules perfectly, but I don't find any IPA technical docs saying it will/won't work if I change the hostname back to short name and not FQDN. 

Searching for it, I found on RedHat guide: "The hostname of a system is critical for the correct operation of Kerberos and SSL. Both of these security mechanisms rely on the hostname to ensure that communication is occurring between the specified hosts." 
I've also found this message http://osdir.com/ml/freeipa-users/2012-03/msg00006.html which seems to be related to my case, but what I need to know is: where does it state FQDN is a mandatory requirement in order to FreeIPA to work and/or is there anything else (a patch, update, whatever) to solve this issue, so I don't need to change my applications? 

Thank you and sorry for the wall of a text. 

PS: Enviroment is CentOS 6.5, in both IPA server and client. DNS is not the same server as IPA (it forwards to a Windows DC). 

RPMs: 
libipa_hbac-1.9.2-129.el6_5.4.x86_64 
libipa_hbac-python-1.9.2-129.el6_5.4.x86_64 
python-iniparse-0.3.1-2.1.el6.noarch 
ipa-pki-common-theme-9.0.3-7.el6.noarch 
ipa-pki-ca-theme-9.0.3-7.el6.noarch 
ipa-admintools-3.0.0-37.el6.x86_64 
ipa-server-selinux-3.0.0-37.el6.x86_64 
ipa-server-3.0.0-37.el6.x86_64 
ipa-python-3.0.0-37.el6.x86_64 
ipa-client-3.0.0-37.el6.x86_64 


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