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The Hesiod system [0] used at MIT in the 80s is based on DNS. It stored things like user (passwd) entries and which is the mail server for an account as DNS TXT
by mprovost 6y ago
The Hesiod system [0] used at MIT in the 80s is based on DNS. It stored things like user (passwd) entries and which is the mail server for an account as DNS TXT records. You could just query the DNS server but there were also dedicated tools. [1]
[0] https://debathena.mit.edu/trac/wiki/Hesiod https://debathena.mit.edu/trac/wiki/Hesiod
[1] http://www.mit.edu/afs.new/athena/project/ctraining/presentations/hesiod/html/text9.html http://www.mit.edu/afs.new/athena/project/ctraining/presenta...
- andyjpb 6y agoThere is still Hesiod support in GlibC / NSS, etc on most modern systems. When put together with Kerberos it's a nice way to provision auth on lots of machines automatically. It's nice to have a dedicated and restricted resolver config so that the zone visibility can be restricted but that makes deployment a little more complex.
- dublin 6y ago+100 for use Hesiod. It solved this problem well and correctly years ago, and just works. (It was also a key part of the support for Carnegie-Mellon's Andrew networked filesystem.) The seamless integration of all the Project Athena stuff (Hesiod, Kerberos, etc.) with DEC Ultrix is one of many reasons that Ultrix is still, IMO, the greatest Unix/;Unix-like distro in history.
- m463 6y agoand of course the venerable NIS / yp lived parallel to DNS in most organizations.