Re: lynx-dev Found DNS lookup strange problem in Lynx 2.8.1 Win 95 versio

[Lloyd Rasmussen]

On Fri, 11 Jun 1999 02:14:39 -0500 (CDT), Klaus Weide wrote:

>On Fri, 11 Jun 1999 address@hidden wrote:
>
>> I tested Lynx on Win NT 4 PC with SP4. This PC has no DNS entry.
>> For lynx.cfg, I use proxy server setting of http://10.217.1.5:8080/
>> 
>> If I do
>> lynx http://www.pcworld.com, able to access web site. DNS resolve by proxy
>> lynx www.pcworld.com, unable to access web site as DNS fails. i.e. resolve 
>> by PC
>> lynx, press g, www.pcworld.com, unable to access web site as DNS fails, i.e.
>> resolve by PC
>> lynx, press g, http://www.pcworld.com, able to access web site. DNS resolved 
>> by
>> proxy.
>> 
>> I did not test on Windows 95 PC, but I suspect the result to be the same.
>
>That is working as designed - complete URLs are the preferred form of
>input.[*]
>
>If you just type www.pcworld.com, Lynx doesn't know what it is.  So it
>checks whether www.pcworld.com is a hostname and whether there is a file
>or directory named "www.pcworld.com".  If neither check returns true,
>access fails.
>
>You don't need a DNS entry for the PC in order to resolve names, you
>just need access to a valid name server.  (Disregard this sentence if in
>MS lingo "DNS entry" means something different than for the rest of the
>world.)  I guess you could add frequently uses hosts to the HOSTS file,
>as an imperfect workaround (with the expected problems: if the
>server changes address in the future your entries will be wrong).
>
>[*] Different browsers have different heuristics for completing incomplete
>input.  Things work best with full URLs, you tell the program exactly what
>you want and (hopefully) get what you want.
>
  The copies of Lynx I have used have URL guessing enabled in the
lynx.cfg.  In the binaries compiled by Wayne and by Doug Kaufman,
typing 'fdisk' at a Goto prompt would send you to
http://www.fdisk.com/ in almost all cases.  In Mr. Senshu's Lynxes,
he may have some different heuristics in the code, since .jp will
often be the preferred country.  I tried to change it in the Lynx.cfg
to more like what's shown.  It only worked after the first connection
had been established through the Windows networking layer.  Once a
connection has been made to the outside world in that session, URL
guessing occurs; before that you need a fully qualified URL.  Another
quirk.  I'm still looking forward to someone releasing a "final"
2.8.2 as a Win95 binary.


Lloyd Rasmussen
Work:  address@hidden  http://www.loc.gov/nls/
Home:  address@hidden  http://lras.home.sprynet.com/