[RFE] dhclient(8) should send hostname

[Brooks Davis]

On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 11:11:22AM -0800, Julian Elischer wrote:
> joerg at britannica.bec.de wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 04:02:17PM +0100, Frank Behrens wrote:
> > 
> >
> >>I propose a change, that dhclient sends always the current hostname 
> >>to the server, the value can be overwritten in dhclient.conf. I see 
> >>no negative impact, because the server has always the possibility to 
> >>reject the name and to choose another one. It would simplify the 
> >>setup and lead to the same behaviour as in other (operating) systems.
> >>A possible (I'm sure not the best) solution I appended as attachment. 
> >
> >I object this, since it is one of the most annoying default behaviours
> >of Windows. It is the first thing I disable on all clients -- I have a
> >static name mapping, why should I update the DNS zone?
> >
> >Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of zones where the
> >host update request is ignored far outweights the number of
> >configurations where it is wanted. At least Bind sometimes like to whine
> >about it.
> 
> it would certainly make life easier sometimes.

I'm inclined to add this feature, possibly with an option to turn it
off.  It seems like a useful default and it's what other OSes do.  I
don't believe the objection above has much relevance since the actual
update if any is only performed if the DHCP server is configured to make
one.  Incorrect DHCP packets sent by DHCP servers are my problem.  Side
effects caused by misconfiguration is not.

The actual patch leaves a bit to be desired in that it uses a magic
value for the array size and uses sysctl rather than the perfectly
adequate POSIX gethostname().

-- Brooks

-- 
Any statement of the form "X is the one, true Y" is FALSE.
PGP fingerprint 655D 519C 26A7 82E7 2529  9BF0 5D8E 8BE9 F238 1AD4
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-hackers/attachments/20060317/9d8e6ff0/attachment.pgp