source: trunk/athena/lib/hesiod/README @ 22429

This is release 3.1.0 of the Hesiod name service library.  Hesiod can
provide general name service for a variety of applications and is
based on the Berkeley Internet Name Daemon (BIND).

To prepare this directory for building, run the command "./configure".
configure takes a number of options; use "./configure --help" to find
out what they are.  Hesiod requires a vaguely ANSI compiler to build;
gcc will do.

Run "make" or "make all" to build the Hesiod library.

Run "make install" to install the Hesiod library.

You will want to create a configuration file named hesiod.conf in the
sysconfdir (/usr/local/etc/hesiod.conf by default) on your client
machines, reading something like:

        rhs=.your.domain
        lhs=.ns

The value of rhs can be overridden at run time by the environment
variable HES_DOMAIN.  The value ".ns" for lhs is an unfortunate
historical convention; ".hs" or "hesiod" would have been better.
Nevertheless, you probably want to use ".ns" for compatibility with
existing Hesiod domains.

To create Hesiod information on your central name servers, you need to
make them authoritative for the domain ns.your.domain with a line in
named.boot reading something like:

        primary         ns.your.domain          named.hesiod

And then in named.hesiod, you need data looking something like:

        ; SOA and NS records.
        @       IN      SOA     server1.your.domain admin-address.your.domain (
                        40000         ; serial - database version number
                        1800          ; refresh - sec servers
                        300           ; retry - for refresh
                        3600000       ; expire - unrefreshed data
                        7200 )        ; min
                        NS      server1.your.domain
                        NS      server2.your.domain

        ; Actual Hesiod data.
        haynes.grplist  TXT     "haynes:2638"
        haynes.group    TXT     "haynes:*:2638:"
        2638.gid        CNAME   haynes.group
        zephyr.sloc     TXT     "zephyrserver1.my.domain"
        zephyr.sloc     TXT     "zephyrserver2.my.domain"

There is a mailing list at MIT for Hesiod users, hesiod@mit.edu.  To
get yourself on or off the list, send mail to hesiod-request@mit.edu.