By locking the speeds, you prevent the cards from negotiating. This is
both good and bad. Despite the 
"standard" of autoneg, it doesn't always work. If you can use it, you
should. If you can't because clients
do not correctly negotiate a connection speed, try locking the client to
100-full (or whatever) and leaving 
the switch port at auto first. 

As for host files? My preference is to keep a very basic host file on
the machine. To me, that means 
only "localhost", the host itself and perhaps any core services that you
absolutely need for the machine 
to run. If you are doing a lot of host lookups, then a local host file
that is kept up to date via cfengine or
some other mechanism will be much faster. The problem with local files
and DNS is once they are out of
synch, you will waste time trying to figure out why things are broken.
If you are having problems with 
DNS servers, then fix the underlying problem.

ian



-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces at mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of Preston,
Douglas L
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 9:55 AM
To: Adams, Dwayne; veritas-bu at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] clients in hosts files and forcing NICs to
FULL

We use 100 Full Duplex on all cards and swich ports of our servers
except ont the GB nics which require auto negotioate to use the GB
speed.  I like hosts files because they are there when even when someone
does stupid things to the dns servers. 


Doug Preston
Systems Engineer
Land America Tax and Flood Services
Phone 626-339-5221 Ext 104
Email  dlpreston at landam.com


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-----Original Message-----
From: veritas-bu-bounces at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
[mailto:veritas-bu-bounces at mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of Adams,
Dwayne
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 9:28 AM
To: veritas-bu at mailman.eng.auburn.edu
Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] clients in hosts files and forcing NICs to
FULL

Hello,

 

I have managed a few backup environments and always put the backup
servers in the hosts file of the clients and the clients in the backup
server's hosts file.  I always like to control name resolution myself.
Do most backup administrator do that or am I a relic from the past?
Also, do most backup admins use AUTO negotiate or set the switch port
and the host to FULL DUPLEX? My practices are being questioned and I
would like to check to see if what I am doing is in line with what most
backup admins are doing.

 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Dwayne Adams


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