[K12OSN] RE: OT: /etc/hosts autoupdate (Paul VanGundy)

[Paul VanGundy]

Matt and All,

I understand all of the below now. The same way you can jail a DHCP
server....However, I guess I didn't explain myself well at all. I will try
to explain what I want to do better....

We have Ubuntu 6.06 with LTSP running and authenticating against a Windows
ADS for both usernames and passwords. When a computer contacts the DHCP
server on the Ubuntu box it gives it a name of ws005.ltsp (an example).
Well, I want an entry to be made in /etc/hosts that has the computers REAL
name. So if computer.network.local contacts the Ubuntu DHCP server and it
gives it a lease of 172.21.25.26 then a entry will be made in /etc/hosts
that computer.network.local has 172.21.25.26 (example). See what I want? I
want something like DDNS. I understand that. That is why I was asking how
can I make it so I can get this to happen? Does LTSP solely rely on
/etc/hosts for hosts information? Can you make LTSP use a DNS database? I
hope I'm making sense.

-Paul

--
Paul VanGundy
Information Technology Director
Epping High School
Epping Middle School
P: 603.679.5472
F: 603.679.2966
vangundypw at sau14.k12.nh.us
Registered Linux User #398783

-----Original Message-----
From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf
Of Matt Oquist
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 1:51 PM
To: k12osn at redhat.com
Subject: [K12OSN] RE: OT: /etc/hosts autoupdate (Paul VanGundy)

> 1. Can I have Bind be a secondary DNS and replicate from the primary 
> DNS that is installed on the Active Directory server?

Sure. In fact, you can ditch Windows DNS entirely and go with Bind
exclusively. O'Reilly's "DNS and BIND" has a great section that explains
exactly what's going on with AD & DNS, and how you can set up Bind to do DNS
for AD. It takes some messing around the first time you do it (especially if
you're learning about AD at the same time), but I set up several schools a
year ago with Bind (serving as primary and
secondary) and they've been working fine.

> 2. How will this effect my thin clients?

If DNS is properly configured, it shouldn't affect your thin clients either
way. Typically you just have all the thin clients in the hosts file on the
server, though.

> 3. What's the difference between BIND and BIND-CHROOT?

'chroot' is the command that CHanges ROOT to a specified directory.
Many services can be run in 'chroot' mode, and doing so provides added
insurance that they cannot be compromised and start messing about with files
elsewhere in your filesystem. For example, if you chroot your bind service
to /chroot, then it can't touch anything under /etc because it can't even
see it. For that bind process, the root directory (/) is what *you* see as
/chroot. Make sense?

--matt

--
Open Source Software Engineering Consultant http://majen.net/