As stated in HOSTNAME(1) of the Linux Programmer's Manual

hostname - show or set the system's host name
domainname - show or set the system's NIS/YP domain name
dnsdomainname - show the system's DNS domain name
nisdomainname - show or set system's NIS/YP domain name
ypdomainname - show or set the system's NIS/YP domain name
nodename - show or set the system's DECnet node name



The questions is: what do i need to do with each of these items? What is a nisdomainname and a ypdomainname and what can they do for me? i have my hostname and dnsdomainname set, as they were configured in netconfig during installation of the OS. So do i need to worry about the other items or what?

You don't really need ypdomainname or nisdomainname unless you're on a network that specifically uses these services.

ypdomainname refers to the old Sun Yellow Pages network service. It evolved and changed its name to Network Information Services later on. Both ypdomainname and nisdomainname are present to ensure backwards compatibility. These services provide distributed user and group information, a directory-like feature, nowadays pretty much replaced by LDAP.


Håkan

u shouldent have to wory about them, iv never seen them used anywere in my distro, and iv been thru all teh netowrk setup scipts, unless your having internet problems or are just curious (now i might go check it out and see what they do ), u might just leave them alone, the first 3 are the only real important ones