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I have a home network with 2 Macs and one Linux box. There is a caching DNS nameserver on the Linux box. I would like the Macs to use the caching server, and only if that is inaccessible fall through to external DNS.
Do Macs rotate through all the configured nameservers or try them in order until one works?
Another quirk is that internal DHCP is served by my router (a Linksys WRT54GL), which has room for three nameservers. But if less than three are configured, the blank spots are filled in with whatever the router's external DHCP has provided -- in this case, Comcast's "Domain Helper" DNS breakage, which I don't want (the cache is configured to use Google's public DNS).
Thus, if Macs do round-robin, I need something to put in the other two spots. Is it bad to simply repeat the caching server's IP?
there is no “SEARCH STRATEGY” in the afore linked manpage – Radu Simionescu – 2016-10-31T14:12:55.903
Thanks! And all Mac software goes through this library? (I vaguely remember reading somewhere that some doesn't...) – Reid – 2010-09-20T16:36:33.233
There is no practical way to force all software to use a single resolver library. No one can make a statement like “all Mac OS X software uses the system resolver”. Anyone that can build software can build it to use a different resolver library. Many OSes bundle BIND’s resolver library but there are other implementations available (e.g. the resolver library from djbdns).
– Chris Johnsen – 2010-09-21T02:37:04.133To be pedantic, yes. Feel free to read my question as "all Mac software that doesn't do strange things". I'm just trying to figure out what the standard way of doing things on Mac OS X is. – Reid – 2010-09-21T20:19:06.470
There is an old KB article that might help you out. Mac OS X will go down in order all the servers listed in /etc/resolv.conf . http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1660439
– Madison S – 2010-09-24T17:18:40.580I'm going to award the bounty given @Madison's clarification, despite your unhelpfully pedantic comment. Thanks @Madison - sorry I can't split the bounty. – Reid – 2010-09-26T02:36:56.527