6/16    Is there a way for a user to set the DNS search domain on a
        UNIX (generic answer if possible; if not, what about sunos/solaris?
        linux?)
        \_ can't you twiddle around with LD_LIBRARY_PATH or something so
           that an alternate library containing a gethostbyname is used
           instead?
        \_ Short answer: no.
           Long answer: if you don't really need it to work for the whole
           domain, you just have a couple of hosts that you want to work
           then you can, for ssh, set them up with aliases in your
           ~/.ssh/config file.  For most other programs that use the standard
           system resolver (most of them, like ftp and telnet), you can set
           the environment variable HOSTALIASES to a file which contains
           aliases of the form:
           alias    fully.qualified.domain.name
           Note, this won't work for ping because it's setuid and thus
           HOSTALIASES isn't used to avoid security problems.  --dbushong
        \_ From 'man resolver' on Solaris:
             The current domain name as defined in the system  initialization
             file  resolv.conf can be overridden by the environment vari-
             able LOCALDOMAIN.  This  environment  variable  may  contain
             several  blank-separated  tokens if you wish to override the
           \_ Any reason this works on some domains (.ocf) and not others
              (several)? (as seen from a linux box; doesn't recur on soda)
             search list on a per-process basis.
           Works on Solaris & FreeBSD - think it's part of standard BIND -alan-
                \_ alanc: 1, dbushong: 0
                   \_ It's not a contest.  You learn something new every day.
                      --dbushong
                   \_ alanc: -5 for giving a non-LINUX answer!  Who cares
                      about that legacy Sun junk?  And we all know freebsd
                      was dead the day Linus, Our Lord and Saviour, wrote
                      the First Line.  main(){ printf("Linux Rulez! The
                      rest dr00l!!1\n";exit(1);}  /* GPL DUDE! */
                                      \_ You missed a parenthesis.
                                        \_ I think I made my point.
                                      \_ good thing linus wrote that first
                                         line and not you.
                                        \_ Not really.  It's the same quality.
                                      \_ ucb traitor. linux continues to be
                                         a toy because it depends on coders
                                         like you
                                        \_ LINUX R000LEZ!!  Y00 DR00LEZ!!!11
                                           \_ Windows is installed on more
                                              PCs than that crappy Linus.
                        \_ You must try harder my troll friend.  Solaris &
                           Linux were both first released in 1991 - FreeBSD
                           didn't fork off 386BSD until a couple years later.
                           Sounds like Linux is equally deserving of the
                           "old legacy OS that should get out of the way"
                           title.
                                \_ Solaris was a real OS in 91.  Linux was
                                   lucky to not crash on boot.  Solaris in
                                   91 was a functional and stable OS.  Linux
                                   was lucky if the login prompt came up.  I
                                   *really* hate historical revisionism and
                                   other forms of false comparison.  Linux
                                   never became mainstream and useful enough
                                   to become legacy junk.  It's just junk.
                                \_ Solaris wasn't usable until 2.4; I don't
                                   remember when that came out but it
                                   remember when that was released, but it
                                   certainly wasn't in 1991.  -tom
                                \_ I used SunOS 4.0.8 on a Sparc 1 in 1990.
                                                                --sowings
           \_ Thanks; works perfectly on bsd/solaris -- but for some reason,
              under linux, works only for some domains (eg ocf) and not
              others with ping [works for all domains via telnet]. Would
              be interesting to hear a reason...
           \_ they could set up their own chroot environment with its own
              hosts files setting the search path.
              \_ Can a user set up a chroot?  If you could do that, wouldn't
                 that make programs that expected to check trusted files in
                 /etc before going setuid insecure?
                 \_ No, and yes.  See chroot(2).