getting DNS config to clients

[Kim Hawtin]

> kim at hawtin.net.au wrote:
>> I've been researching how we get the IPs of our DNS servers to our
>> clients
>> dynamically.
>>
>> So far we've looked at config RADVD and DHCPv6 on Linux ...
>>
>> What are the accepted/widely used 'standard' ways of setting up clients?
>> Particularly clients that frequently move between differnt networks.
>
> Depends completely on your environment and what you are used to.

Two different areas here for me, as I'm really learning the .

Firstly I am setting up IPv6 at home, then for our local community
wireless network.

Secondly we'll be adding IPv6 at work over the next couple of years
and I want to go in with my eyes open...

> Currently most sites that I know of use DHCPv4 for IPv4 addresses + DNS
> config, along with other info they might send and RA for IPv6 addresses.
> As most sites will be dual-stacked for a long long time to come this is
> a really easy way to transition to IPv6, just turn on RA, presto, as
> DHCPv4 was already present.

At home and on the WWAN I've been thinking about moving to IPv6 only
to really get it.

Work will take a long time to get our applications to support
everything properly.

> The other mode is of course to use DHCPv6 for the info, which partially
> implies you have to run an RA also to be tell the client to do DHCPv6 in
> the first place.
>
> One can also use RA's to distribute the DNS servers using the RDNSS
> option. The problem with this, and also with DHCPv6 in a way, is that an
> OS/Distro combo which supports the RA RDNSS option, or one which comes
> per default with DHCPv6 installed and enabled is not widely available.
> Thus one has to nearly always retrofit that in.

My main question around this is, do most clients actually implement
this properly?

> Another way to distribute these details is something that a lot of
> ISP-folks tend to forget: Active Directory. Indeed, one can script
> nearly everything in there and nicely push configurations outbound.
> Probably not something one always wants to do, but when one is a
> Microsoft shop, then it is not a too strange idea. Of course this
> requires that all the boxes are in the domain, that you have control,
> and that they are MS based, which is far from the case in a lot of
> environments, but business environments might have this option too.

Absurd licencing costs puts Active Directory out of the reach of the
individual and community wireless groups. So I am investigating lots
of options.

>From a work perspective, all the world is _not_ a windows box. We do
have Active Directory, but there are so many unsupported platforms.

Should be an interesting journey =)

cheers,

Kim