bind 4.8 under OSx 4.4c

[Carl S. Gutekunst]

>Does anyone have bind 4.8 workin consistently under OSx 4.4c? I called
>Pyramid, they said that it is fixed under 5.0.  But I want a working
>nameserver now...

Before I answer this, you need to understand the scope of the problem. When
you change versions of BIND, you change getbyhostname(3N) and its friends in
libc.a. That means *everything* that references gethostbyname() has to be re-
linked and replaced. That works out to a total of 99 binary files in the OSx
release, including libc.a itself. You also must relink all your own utilities
that call gethostbyname(3N), and only *you* know where they are. You also have
to use Sendmail 5.61, of course.

That said, there are two versions of BIND 4.8 available from Pyramid for OSx
4.4c. One was done by Field Engineering, and was provided as a special to a
customer who was (quite reasonably) threatening to pitch their machine into
the Atlantic if we didn't give them a working nameserver. But it was not made
available as a general PTF because of the huge number of files affected. The
documentation was incomplete at that time, too.

The other version was done by me, and is the same code as in OSx 5.0. I have
provided this to two sites as private beta tests (both of whom are personal
friends, which makes debugging easier), and am also shipping it to a third.
Being as I am in R&D, not customer service, I'd really rather not have to
support another site.

My suggestions are these:

- Get yourself high on the priority list for OSx 5.0. This will be one of the
  best initial releases we have done, if not the best; I would not be afraid
  to be the first on the block to have it.

- Failing that, call up RTOC again, tell them you are perfectly willing to
  take BIND 4.8 as a "special," and tell your salescritter that if you don't
  get it you'll pitch the machine into the Pacific. :-)

- Failing that, you can get it from me. But if it you have problems with it
  other than bugs, I won't be able to help you. And if you have some other
  problem that requires RTOC to service the machine, you'll have to back out
  all the BIND stuff first.

<csg>