DNS, BIND9 ... diving in ...

[Joshua Tinnin]

On Sat 30 Apr 05 13:57, Chuck Swiger <cswiger at mac.com> wrote:
> Joshua Tinnin wrote:
> [ ... ]
>
> > Received: from unknown (HELO smogmonster.com)
> > 	(jtinnin at pacbell.net@64.173.27.15 with plain)
> > 	by smtp811.mail.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 30 Apr 2005 11:26:08
> > -0000
> >
> > Well, I don't own smogmonster.com (when I first picked it, nobody
> > did, but now someone does), but FreeBSD wouldn't let me assign a
> > name that wouldn't ever resolve, like simply "smogmonster". Is this
> > a problem, or should I not worry about it? Or am I missing
> > something vital here?
>
> It's considered impolite to impersonate a domain which does not
> belong to you. For the purposes of email, it would be better to
> masquerade as a host in the domain of your ISP or mail service (ie,
> masquarade as pacbell.net).

OK, thanks for clarifying, as that's what I thought, but ...

> > Also, is there any sort of guide on how to set up DNS in my
> > situation?
>
> Yes, use an invalid top-level domain like .local, or maybe .lan.

So, which would be better here? Would it be considered impolite to 
assign foo.local to my workstation, if I'm sending email through 
Pacbell's (SBC/Yahoo) server? Or would it be more impolite to 
masquerade as pacbell.net, as the mail server is actually assigned to 
Yahoo, and the ISP is now SBC with Pacbell email names grandfathered in 
from their acquisition? Or, maybe this isn't so much of an issue, as 
long as it's not masquerading as someone else's domain, but I'd tend 
towards something like .local, as there won't be any confusion.

> > I've read the handbook, and it seems most of it is covered, but
> > additional sources are always welcome. Later, I'll be getting
> > static IPs and will probably have my ISP handle rDNS, but I'll need
> > to assign authoritative names at that point, though not until then.
>
> O'Reilley publishes an excellent book on DNS, although the BOG (BIND
> Operations Guide) is also worth a read.

Yes, I must remember to save some money and get some more O'Reilly 
books. Their DNS book has been recommended to me before, but thanks for 
reminding me, as I know it's good, and it honestly should be on my 
shelf. Have been meaning to get Greg Leahey's book as well, but maybe 
I'll wait for the next edition, because he recently said he'd be 
updating it.

- jt