Loopback alias

Niall O'Reilly Niall.oReilly at ucd.ie
Thu Mar 4 20:59:45 UTC 2010


On 04/03/10 19:13, ic.nssip wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> When running "make test" on a BIND 9.7.0 installed on a x86 SUN
> Solaris 10 machine, I've got this message:
> 
> I:NOTE: Many of the tests were skipped because they require that
> I:      the IP addresses 10.53.0.1 through 10.53.0.5 are configured
> I:      as alias addresses on the loopback interface.  Please run
> I:      "bin/tests/system/ifconfig.sh up" as root to configure them
> I:      and rerun the tests.
> 
> Is this alias request just for test purpose,

	Yes.

	The tests mentioned involve setting up a number of DNS 
	clients and servers, each on its own address, and exercising 
	various queries and responses.

	You opt out by not running the ifconfig.sh script.
	I seem to recall that the installation instructions advise
	you to read this script carefully before running it.

	In my experience, some more recent OS environments impose
	a restricted definition of PATH for root;  this causes 
	ifconfig.sh to fail unless some extra commands are used.
	These are trivial enough that I've never been minded to
	file a bug report.

> or it affects the
> functionality and the performance of DNS Server as well after it goes
> live?

	No.

> It was the first time I saw this message when installing a BIND DNS
> Server from source file, and we never used these aliases on any of
> our machines before. Also, I couldn't find many references on google
> search for loopback alias addresses 10.53.0.1 through 10.53.0.5.

	I'm not sure when this battery of tests was added, but our
	site-local documentation (last revised in August 2006) 
	includes the following.


  To run the complete set of tests for BIND, the system must be 
  temporarily configured with a number of additional local network 
  interfaces. A script for setting these up is included with BIND; 
  inspect it carefully before use, as it must be run as root. 
  This script must be run once, before testing, to set up the 
  interfaces, and again afterwards, to remove them.

    sudo bin/tests/system/ifconfig.sh up
    make test
    sudo bin/tests/system/ifconfig.sh down


	I hope this helps.

	Best regards,

	Niall O'Reilly
	University College Dublin IT Services



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