Usually, when connecting, the ISP will provide you with their DNS server addresses, and they'll be written into /etc/resolv.conf file by the scripts that run when you're connecting, if they're not already there. I've noticed that if the file doesn't need changing, it didn't get changed (i.e. if I'd preloaded it with my ISP's DNS server IP addresses, at the top of the list, they remained). But if it did need changing (i.e. I had others, or local name server addresses first), the ISP's would be written into it, and a backup of that file might be restored after you disconnected.
Sorry I forgot to mention that I'm not using dial-up. I am using DSL. My modem router is acting as DHCP server for rest of the network but I have assigned the static address for my FC5 box because I am serving a small wiki inside the LAN and planning to use it for public also using DynDNS. The problem with my other widnows machines unable to connect with my FC5 box has something to do with the Samba since windows machines uses NetBIOS names to locate the computer. So when my host name suddenly changed without any notice, the wiki served from FC5 became unavilable to windows.
On those notes: You don't usually need to do anything, it's done for you automatically. If you add them while connected, then disconnect, you might get a /etc/resolv.conf file that's different (as the backup gets restored over your modifications). If you're going to add them manually, it's better to do so while off-line. In deference to your subject line, I have found some oddities with it as well, particularly when I hadn't manually set up my machines local addresses - it might add them (machine hostname and FQDN) to the localhost line. a command line, and see what you get). Or the address associated with an interface (each interface has its own name). It may well be that when you connect to your ISP you're supplied with a collection of different details, which your machine may use: * The ISP's DNS server numerical IP addresses. * A gateway address that you connect through for internet traffic. * A public numerical IP address for you, e.g. "192.0.34.166". * A public named address for you, e.g. dialup166.example.com, of which "dialup66" may be used as a temporary hostname for you, and example.com as temporary domain name for you, by your PC. * It's also possible to supply you with addresses to use for other types of services, as well. > My question is still remains: > Does this utility just wipes out everything and rewrites without > considering what is already been configured?
Actually "127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost" line was there in my hosts file when I first installed FC5. After that I changed my hostname, given static IP address, DNS lookup addresses etc. through the graphical interface to something else like "zeeweb". Now what happened was it removed the line "127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost" and replaced with my new setting. "192.168.1.2 zeeweb" As a result in next boot my "sendmail" and "sm_client" took forever to boot trying to resolve the hostname. This is the problem I posted in: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2006-July/msg01627.html In the first place I didn't know that the first line was important to make other programs function well (like sendmail, ... etc.). (Novice like me will not know that. They simply rely on what easiest method available and use it). The problem was solved by hand editing the /etc/hosts file and adding the line back again. Now my etc host files have two line and working well: =================================== 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost 192.168.1.2 zeeweb.locallan.org zeeweb =================================== After few days I changed my hostname (hand edited /etc/hosts file) and now it looks like this: =================================== 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost 192.168.1.2 zeenet.locallan.org zeenet =================================== Few days ago my ISP's DNS went down and they gave me new set of DNS look up addresses to use. Since I don't know which file contains the DNS lookup addresses, I used the graphical interface this time to change the DNS lookup address. After saving the setting and reactivating the network, other windows mahcine on the LAN couldn't reach my FC5 mahcine hosted wiki. I tried to figure out for long time and found out that my hostname has changed back to the previous setting. This time again I have to hand edit the /etc/hosts file and change the host name and all is wokring well again. So how do you explain this? -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list