On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 01:34:35PM -0400, Joe Abley wrote: > On 11 Aug 2015, at 11:11, Viktor Dukhovni wrote: > > The ping program talks to whichever recursive resolver is specificed > > in /etc/resolv.conf. > > More detail is useful, here. The ping program uses a local API to > translate a name into an address. In the case where that translation > requires use of the DNS, a stub resolver sends a query to a recursive > resolver. So probably the stub resolver that we're talking about here > is one of those included in one of those libcs mentioned previously. ping or something else is kind of irrelevant as long as it's a program using getaddrinfo() or similar system interface to the system stub resolver or that uses the system stub resolver (as opposed to the program being dig(1)). The stub resolver then is the system's. It should use whatever /etc/resolv.conf says to use. *That* has to be a recursive resolver. If you want to have only an authoritative server for local. and no real DNS, you still need a recursive resolver for this reason (answer ordering). > > Recursive resolvers construct answers from their caches, and may > > need to query multiple nameservers > > ... recursive servers, authoritative servers, or both... Viktor is pointing out that /etc/resolv.conf can only point to a recursive resolver. Nico --