Planning and Configuring HP-UX DCE 1.9
Chapter 8
Notes on Cell Administration
Establishing Intercell Communication
100
For example, a CDS server for a cell named "cell.cells.xyz.com" could be running on a machine called
"machine.xyz.com". If gdad cannot find at least one name server that can answer queries for both
"cell.cells.xyz.com" and "machine.xyz.com", it will not be able to obtain a single response containing all needed
data.
To ensure that a given name server will be able to provide all needed data, be sure that either:
• Cell names and host names are part of the same DNS "zone" (database); or,
• If cell names and host names are in different zones, a name server must be configured such that it is a
server for both zones. (It does not matter whether the server is a primary server, secondary server, or
both, as long as both zones are available).
In some cases it may be sufficient to point GDA at a name server that serves the zone containing cell names,
and obtain hostname A (Address) records from that server's cache data. If the name server is frequently used
to look up hostnames, it is likely that A records for "popular" hosts will be in cache. However, it is generally
unwise to rely on a particular resource record being found in cache — this is not a recommended or supported
configuration.
Creating DNS Resource Records for a DCE Cell
Each cell that is to be accessed via GDA must have certain information about the cell's CDS server(s) stored
in DNS. DNS is a distributed, hierarchical database that stores information as one or more "resource records"
associated with a particular domain name. The DNS resource records are added to the DNS database, and
make the cell visible to GDA.
NOTE Creating and maintaining DNS databases is a complex task that is beyond the scope of this
document. The DNS resource record(s) for your cell must be added to the DNS database by your
local DNS administrator, or by a person familiar with DNS and named.
The example in this section uses "absolute" (dot terminated) domain names. This syntax, although verbose,
always works. DNS also allows names to be specified relative to the "current domain," which is
context-dependent. Contact your DNS administrator before using relative names.
To establish a DNS resource record for a cell, do the following:
1. dce_login as the cell administrator for the cell you want to create records for:
dce_login cell_admin
cell_admin_passwd
2. Run the cdscp show cell command. For example:
cdscp show cell /.../cell.xyz.com as dns
SHOW CELL /.../cell.xyz.com AT 1993-01-15-17:15:15 TXT 1 EE527190-F153-11CB-9CE3- 00000912C483\
Master /.../cell.xyz.com/hostname_ch \ECF7E0FA-F153-11CB-9CE3-00000912C483
There may be more than one TXT record for a cell; each clearinghouse in the cell has its own TXT record.
Each TXT record appears on a single line (without the slashes that appear in this example).
(You can also derive this information, though in a different format, using the dcecp directory show
command.)
3. For each TXT record in the output of show cell, create a line in a text file similar to:
cell.xyz.com. IN TXT "
TXT_data hostname.xyz.com
"