In computer networking, there are two types of ip address configurations, dynamic ip address and static ip address. A dynamic ip address means, a host in a network doesn’t have a specific ip address. A dhcp client host will ask it’s ip address from a dhcp server, which provides ip address for all hosts in it’s network.
There are several ways to search files in Ubuntu. Probably you may already come across my other post about searching file in Ubuntu using locate command. Here is another way of searching files in Ubuntu. This time we are using the GNU find command. The find command comes with many options. That makes find a very powerful command. However, new users may not be very comfortable with find. I mean most users prefer a simple command, a command with less options to remember.
Ubuntu nsswitch.conf is an important files regarding dns configuration. The nsswitch.conf is Name Service switch configuration file. Why does it important in dns configuration?
There are two important files in Ubuntu that directly deal with name server in mapping the host names and ip address. One is hosts file and the other is dns itself. This applied if you are not configuring NIS, of course. You can find these two files in nsswitch.conf configuration file. Open /etc/nsswitch.conf file using text editor or less command:
Ubuntu dns server configuration involves many files. I would like to remind you again, please make a backup for every files before you begin editing. Example below:
luzar@ubuntu:/etc/bind$ sudo cp named.conf.local named.conf.local.bakluzar@ubuntu:/etc/bind$ sudo cp named.conf.options named.conf.options.bak
Ubuntu named.conf file is the master configuration file for DNS server. Its pronounced name-dee for name daemon, which is the dns service. It’s location is in /etc/bind/named.conf. You can find named.conf file only after you install the bind9 software package.
DNS is domain name system. In Ubuntu, DNS package is included in bind9 software package. The dns server is called named. Basically what dns do, it translates name to ip address. It also translates ip address to name, which is called reverse dns.
Ubuntu uses named as its DNS or Internet domain name system server. Named is part of BIND 9 distribution from ISC. So, to install Ubuntu dns server, you must install bind software package. Luckily, there is no hassle installing software package in Ubuntu. There are more than one great package management system in Ubuntu that you can use.
Linux finger command prints user information in the system. You need to install finger package in order to use finger command because it’s not installed by default. The finger command can be a threat to system security because attacker can gain information about the system. You can turn off the finger daemon or do not install it in the first place.
Lynx is a command line web browser used in many platform other than Linux. Current versions of Lynx run on Unix, VMS, Windows 95/NT, 386DOS and OS/2 EMX. It also support other protocol other than http such as Gopher, FTP, WAIS, and NNTP servers.
Lynx is a web browser in command line terminal. That means, even in the Ubuntu command line terminal, you can still surf internet and view websites. Lynx is not installed by default during Ubuntu installation. You need to manually install lynx using apt-get install or aptitude install.