[Info-vax] Changing SMTP server presented hostname in UCX

[Simon Clubley]

[A nice simple good old fashioned VMS technical question which doesn't
involve microkernels, modular filesystems, or enhanced shells. :-)]

TCP/IP services V5.6, ECO 5, Alpha V8.3

Problem: the hostname presented by SMTP needs to change from it's
original FQDN (registered in the Alpha's local hosts database)
to an alias also registered against the IP address of the Alpha in
question in the local hosts database.

This is being done because the Alpha in question is being switched to
another Internet connection. Changing the actual domain using the
configuration command procedure worked just fine and the new domain
shows up in TCPIP$INET_DOMAIN.

However "ucx set comm/local="new_hostname"" always uses the primary
hostname instead of the alias. What I have done instead is to manually
change TCPIP$INET_HOST to the alias hostname and that seems to work ok.

Question: Does anyone see a problem with changing TCPIP$INET_HOST in
this way ?

I'm reluctant to start doing major TCPIP configuration changes on this
system because I've discovered there are values in some fields (as a
result of the databases been migrated from UCX 4.x by the configuration
procedure) which are not re-creatable by the TCP/IP Services V5.x tools.

The worry is that something breaks due to the historial source of the
database information and the situation cannot be fixed without a full
reconfiguration and having an extended downtime as a result. It's times
like this that I _really_ appreciate text style configuration files
instead of tools to manipulate a binary database. :-)

Thanks,

Simon.

PS: As an aside, here's a little DCL quirk for you:

$ sh log aaa*

[snip]

%SHOW-S-NOTRAN, no translation for logical name AAA*
$ def aaa bbb "ccc"
%DCL-W-MAXPARM, too many parameters - reenter command with fewer parameters
 \"ccc"\
$ def aaa = "ccc"
$ sh log aaa*

(LNM$PROCESS_TABLE)

  "AAA=" = "ccc"

[snip]

$ def aaa "ccc"
$ sh log aaa*

(LNM$PROCESS_TABLE)

  "AAA" = "ccc"
  "AAA=" = "ccc"

[snip]

The character gets included as part of the logical name instead of the
command being rejected for having invalid syntax. Note how the earlier
command _did_ get rejected correctly.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world