DNS question for Virtual Machine Manager (vm to vm)

[hashbangbinbash]

Hi forum,

I am trying to resolve IP->Name and Name->IP in terms of one virtual machine to another, however editing /etc/hosts doesn't work for me as this is ignored by the command 'host' and 'nslookup'. The system I'm setting up needs domain names dns-resolvable if you see what I mean).

I need the DNS service to know the IP/Name and Name/IP, in Virtual Machine Manager a service called dnsmasq can perform the dns role I understand (say when I unplug the Virtual Machine Host from the Network and try to have the vm's connect to eachother without using the 'real' nameserver out on the network.

Can anyone say if there's a way for me to tell netmasq so that vm1.apples.com (for example) maps to 192.168.1.10 and vice-versa, so that the command "host vm1.apples.com" will now correctly query netmasq and return the IP "192.168.1.10 in this case). Right now I get "Host vm1.apples.com not found: 3 (NXDOMAIN)" because /etc/hosts is ignored for 'host' and 'nslookup' commands).

Hope that makes sense, many thanks for any assistance.

[jpollard]

1. "host" has nothing to do with the hosts file as it, like "nslookup" are designed to use DNS for both testing and information retrieval.

To support DNS requires a name server. Either bind, or one of the lightweight servers such as dnsmasq (as part of DHCP support).

For local systems there is no need for a DNS server other than some possible convenience. If you have more than about 10 clients then yes, a name server (and DHCP) would be useful, but less than that, it becomes just as big a pain as supporting host files.

You get "not found" messages because you are not running a name server.