purpose of the “resolvconf� service? [SOLVED]

[theYinYeti]

I was reading this post by Ian about resolvconf and I thought: why does it exist then? But I wasn't able to find the answer on Google…

 

So, what's the purpose of the “resolvconf†service?

Although I did not try, I am under the impression that in my case, disabling this service would break things. This opinion stems from the fact that I use network profiles, and depending on the netprofile I'm currently using, DNS are not the same. But then, maybe the netprofile service handles this, not resolvconf…

 

Do you have any pointer/link for more information?

 

Yves.

Edited September 21, 2009 by theYinYeti

[ianw1974]

I found this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolvconf

 

The last sentence sums it up quite nicely:

 

The resolvconf program is only necessary when a system has multiple programs that need to dynamically modify the nameserver information. In a simple system where the nameservers do not change often or are only changed by one program, the resolv.conf configuration file is adequate.

 

of course, why Mandriva have it installed by default, I've got no idea. And it's not just workstations, server installations seem to have it as well, and it plays havoc with the system when you're trying to use your own DNS server.

 

This is why I disable it as I've never even found anything that requires it. At least as of yet.....

[viking777]

Hey Ian, thanks for that post, in writing that you have inadvertantly answered my post here:

 

https://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtop...st&p=505574

 

And it seems to work too. I had no idea you could just disable resolvconf and let resolv.conf do all the work.

 

Sadly as I suspected it doesn't do much for my connection speeds, but I am glad I found an answer to it anyway.

 

EDIT Wrong again, it survived my changing modems but when I rebooted it went back to the default nameserver. Not to worry, as I said it makes very little difference to my connection anyway.

Edited September 18, 2008 by viking777

[theYinYeti]

Thank you Ian! I'll disable it then, and I'll see…

 

Yves.

[ianw1974]

If it went back to default nameserver, then you must be using DHCP perhaps for IP address, and so best thing to do if you have ext3 as file system is to lock the file from modifications. I think it was:

 

chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf

 

then it'll never change again once you've modified it to what you want it to be.