HP-UX IP Address and Client Management Administrator's Guide HP-UX 11i v2, HP-UX 11i v3

1. To assign Internet addresses to the hosts in your domain, you must ask the appropriate
person or organization for a range of Internet addresses.
• If your organization already has a domain on a public network, you must set up a
subdomain.
• If your organization does not have a domain on a public network, and you want to set
one up, you can request a domain registration form from Government Systems, Inc., at
the following address:
Government Systems, Inc.
ATTN: Network Information Center
Chantilly, VA 22021
phone: [phone]
email: [e-mail]
If your organization belongs to several networks, register your domain with only one
of them.
• If your organization is not connected to a network, you can set up domains without
registering them. However, HP recommends that you follow the Internet naming
conventions in case you later decide to join a public network.
2. Next, you must decide a name for your domain using the following guidelines:
• Use only letters (A-Z), digits (0-9), and hyphens (-) for the domain name. Domain names
do not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters.
• Avoid labels longer than 12 characters. (A label is a single component of a fully qualified
name, like indigo or com.)
• If a host connects to more than one network, it must have the same name on each
network.
• Do not use nic or other well-known acronyms as the leftmost (most specific) label in
a domain name. Contact Government Systems, Inc., for a list of top-level and second-level
domain names already in use.
3. After you have registered your domain, you can create subdomains without registering
them with the public network.
Configuring the Name Service Switch
The Name Service Switch determines where your system looks for host information to resolve
a host name to an IP address.
For all types of information except host information, you can configure your system to use NIS
(one of the NFS Services) or the local /etc file, in any order. HP recommends not to configure
your system to use NIS.
For host information, you can configure your system to use BIND (DNS), NIS, or the /etc/hosts
file. As mentioned earlier, HP recommends not to configure your system to use both NIS.
See HP-UX Internet Services Administrator’s Guide at the URL http://www.docs.hp.com/
hpux/netcom/index.html#Internet%20Services for more information on the Name
Service Switch.
Configuring the Name Service Switch 63