VR> Or maybe there is a setting on the DNS server?
JdeBP> There is no setting. DNS servers, and the DNS protocol,
JdeBP> deal solely in fully qualified domain names. You are
JdeBP> supplying unqualified domain names to your applications,
JdeBP> which the DNS Client has to turn into fully qualified
JdeBP> domain names before issuing a query to a DNS server.
VR> Thanks for nothing Johny.... you should take a lesson from
VR> Rakesh on helpful replies and not a reply that just answers
VR> a question with a question.
The supposed lack of helpfulness is entirely of your own making, and is a
problem with you, not with anyone else. As can be clearly seen, the reply
answered your question with a whole paragraph, in which there were no
questions at all.
An additional irony of your suggesting that I learn from Rakesh is that most
of his reply wasn't actually answering _either_ of the questions that you
posed (whereas mine started off by answering one of your questions in the very
first sentence). Instead, most of it was telling you all about devolution and
how to set the search path - both of which you clearly already knew. Is
spending all but the last two lines of the message telling you stuff that you
already know really what you would have us all aspire to ?
JdeBP> Search paths are a menace, incidentally. You are unwise to
JdeBP> rely upon them heavily. In any case: If you wanted a single
JdeBP> flat namespace for all of your machine names, as you
JdeBP> apparently do, why did you choose to have multiple domains
JdeBP> in the first place ?
VR> [...] we have multiple domains for geographical reasons and the
VR> size of our company. For our purposes it's much easier to have
VR> someone manage our different global locations. But in some
VR> cases we do need to access shares between domains.
That's not a good reason for wanting a single flat namespace for all of your
machine names. Sharing can employ fully qualified domain names. Is that your
sole reason ?
VR> Obviously I'm not the only person that was having this
VR> problem [...]
But you are one of the few of those people who ignore the good advice to avoid
having this problem in the first place, when given it. However, it is quite
probable that eventually you will encounter an unexpected name->address
mapping, or end up in a situation with conflicting search order requirements,
or find yourself wasting time doing all of the tasks that having separate
domains is supposed to prevent the need for. At that point, you ought to kick
yourself for failing to heed good advice from the outset.
Search paths are a menace. You are unwise to rely upon them heavily.
