Setting up a domain server

[Brendan Kehoe]

I'm trying to set up the DNS properly so that when my router's hooked up
(on Friday, supposedly) I'll be ready to "just turn it on", so to speak.
Right now I have the name server for the domain I'm defining
(cs.widener.edu.) set up okay. It's able to chop down all of the local
machines, as well as see cs.widener.edu as the main host (it's equal to
laverne.cs.widener.edu).  Fine, nslookup's working. Yahoo. After a few
hours I got the sendmail.cf set up reasonably ok to work with sendmail.mx,
for *sending*. I've got it so I can send to/from anywhere I want in my
domain without any problems (like sending to brendan at cs.widener.edu, as
well as saying specifically brendan at ashley.cs.widener.edu, whose mail
exchanger is laverne.cs.widener.edu).  It works. I even set up the yp
domain as .cs.widener.edu (with the dot in front).  But when I try to
connect to port 25 with sendmail.mx set up as a daemon, it connects then
freezes. I've heard mention that I have to modify the libc.so.1.5 so that
it uses the domain name service to resolve host names rather than using
the yp (er..NIS) stuff. Umm...HOW? :) I did see the stuff in shlib.etc
about adding to the shared library, but the stuff in libresolv.a didn't
have one called 'gethostname.o', and libns.a looked like it was all by
itself with tons of crap that wouldn't go in there. Was I near the
solution at all?  I tried doing the make of the YP host maps with the -b
option to makedbm, but it froze -- I assume this is a result of not having
the resolving libraries up yet.  Anybody that'd be willing to do a lil
writeup of how to set up the libraries would be greatly appreciated. Also
anything you care to throw in about setting up DNS properly (am I wrong in
thinking I'll just add the two servers for the widener.edu domain when
router's connected? I do have the HOSTS.TXT stuff set up properly [I
believe]), getting mail to work, etc etc. would be greatly appreciated. I
read TFM until my eyes fell out, and haven't found anything about this
(nothing in the sendmail section about resolving hosts, etc).  Oh yeah,
I'm doing all of this on Sparc1's running 4.1.  If there's any more info
you need about what I'm doing, just say the word.

Brendan Kehoe | Soon: brendan at cs.widener.edu
For now: kehoe at scotty.dccs.upenn.edu | Or: bkehoe at widener.bitnet
Last resort: brendan.kehoe at cyber.widener.edu