Configuring a System Name and Prompt
Understanding DNS
The DNS protocol controls the Domain Name System (DNS), a distributed database with which you can
map host names to IP addresses. When you configure DNS on your bridge, you can substitute the host
name for the IP address with all IP commands, such as ping, telnet, connect, and related Telnet support
operations.
IP defines a hierarchical naming scheme that allows a device to be identified by its location or domain.
Domain names are pieced together with periods (.) as the delimiting characters. For example, Cisco
Systems is a commercial organization that IP identifies by a com domain name, so its domain name is
cisco.com. A specific device in this domain, such as the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) system, is
identified as ftp.cisco.com.
To keep track of domain names, IP has defined the concept of a domain name server, which holds a cache
(or database) of names mapped to IP addresses. To map domain names to IP addresses, you must first
identify the host names, specify the name server that is present on your network, and enable the DNS.
This section contains this configuration information:
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•
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Default DNS Configuration
Table 5-3
Table 5-3
Feature
DNS enable state
DNS default domain name
DNS servers
Setting Up DNS
Beginning in privileged EXEC mode, follow these steps to set up your bridge to use the DNS:
Command
Step 1
configure terminal
Step 2
ip domain-name name
Cisco Aironet 1400 Series Wireless Bridges Software Configuration Guide
5-32
Default DNS Configuration, page 5-32
Setting Up DNS, page 5-32
Displaying the DNS Configuration, page 5-33
shows the default DNS configuration.
Default DNS Configuration
Purpose
Enter global configuration mode.
Define a default domain name that the software uses to complete unqualified
host names (names without a dotted-decimal domain name).
Do not include the initial period that separates an unqualified name from the
domain name.
At boot time, no domain name is configured; however, if the bridge
configuration comes from a BOOTP or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP) server, then the default domain name might be set by the BOOTP or
DHCP server (if the servers were configured with this information).
Default Setting
Disabled.
None configured.
No name server addresses are configured.
Chapter 5
Administering the Bridge
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