How to configure DNS to maintain host information

You might want to maintain host information centrally using DNS. With DNS, you do not have to update the /etc/hosts file every time you add a new host to the network. If you have several storage systems on your network, maintaining host information centrally saves you from updating the /etc/hosts file on each storage system every time you add or delete a host.

You can configure your storage system to use one or more DNS servers either during the setup procedure or later using the command line or FilerView.

If you configure DNS during the setup procedure, your storage system's DNS domain name and name server addresses are configured in one of the following ways:

Automatically if you use the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to configure onboard interfaces. Automatic configuration is possible only if all the DHCP-configured DNS server addresses are IPv4 addresses.
Manually if you do not use DHCP—you must enter the values when prompted. You can configure IPv4 and IPv6 addresses as DNS server addresses.
Note: A maximum of three name server IP addresses can be specified for a DNS server.

If you configure DNS later, you need to take these actions:

Specify DNS name servers.
Specify the DNS domain name of your storage system.
Enable DNS on your storage system.

You can enable DNS and set DNS configuration values in either of these ways:

Using FilerView
At the command line

If you want to use primarily DNS for host-name resolution, you should specify it ahead of other methods in the hosts map in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

Correct host-name resolution depends on the correct configuration of the DNS server. If you experience problems with host-name resolution or data availability, check the DNS server in addition to local networking.

For more information about storage system DNS resolution of host names, see the na_dns(8) man page.

Configuring DNS at the command line
You can configure DNS by first creating or editing the /etc/resolv.conf file, then specifying the DNS domain name, and finally enabling DNS through the command-line interface.
Configuring DNS with FilerView
You can set or modify DNS configuration values with FilerView.
How DNS resolves host names
DNS uses A and AAAA (called quad A) records for resolving a domain name to an IP address. To determine a host name based on the IP address, DNS uses the reverse lookup.