DNS and Internet Access

The nsswitch.conf file also controls DNS forwarding for clients as described in the following subsections. DNS forwarding grants Internet access to clients.

The NIS+ client must have a properly configured /etc/resolv.conf file (as described in "DNS Clients and the Resolver").

See the switch file chapter of Solaris Naming Setup and Configuration Guide for step-by-step instructions on enabling DNS forwarding for NIS+ and NIS clients.

DNS Forwarding for NIS+ Clients

NIS+ clients do not have implicit DNS forwarding capabilities like NIS clients do. Instead, they take advantage of the switch. To provide DNS forwarding capabilities to an NIS+ client, change its hosts entry to:

hosts: nisplus dns [NOTFOUND=return] files

DNS Forwarding for NIS Clients

DNS forwarding is inherent in the NIS name service. The proper format for the hosts line in a NIS-primary switch file to enable DNS forwarding is:

hosts: nis [NOTFOUND=return] files

If an NIS client is using the DNS forwarding capability of a NIS-compatible NIS+ server, its nsswitch.conf file should not have hosts: nis dns files as the syntax for the hosts file. This is because DNS forwarding automatically forwards host requests to DNS and this syntax would cause the NIS+ server to forward unsuccessful requests to the DNS servers twice, which would reduce performance. To take best advantage of DNS forwarding, use the default syntax for the nsswitch.nis file.