Ubuntu Manpage: gai.conf - getaddrinfo(3) configuration file

NAME

       gai.conf - getaddrinfo(3) configuration file

DESCRIPTION

A call to getaddrinfo(3) might return multiple answers. According to RFC 3484 these
answers must be sorted so that the answer with the highest success rate is first in the
list. The RFC provides an algorithm for the sorting. The static rules are not always
adequate, though. For this reason, the RFC also requires that system administrators
should have the possibility to dynamically change the sorting. For the glibc
implementation, this can be achieved with the /etc/gai.conf file.

Each line in the configuration file consists of a keyword and its parameters. White
spaces in any place are ignored. Lines starting with '#' are comments and are ignored.

The keywords currently recognized are:

label netmask precedence
The value is added to the label table used in the RFC 3484 sorting. If any label
definition is present in the configuration file, the default table is not used.
All the label definitions of the default table which are to be maintained have to
be duplicated. Following the keyword, the line has to contain a network mask and a
precedence value.

precedence netmask precedence
This keyword is similar to label, but instead the value is added to the precedence
table as specified in RFC 3484. Once again, the presence of a single precedence
line in the configuration file causes the default table to not be used.

reload <yes|no>
This keyword controls whether a process checks whether the configuration file has
been changed since the last time it was read. If the value is "yes", the file is
reread. This might cause problems in multithreaded applications and is generally a
bad idea. The default is "no".

scopev4 mask value
Add another rule to the RFC 3484 scope table for IPv4 address. By default, the
scope IDs described in section 3.2 in RFC 3438 are used. Changing these defaults
should hardly ever be necessary.

FILES

       /etc/gai.conf

VERSIONS

       The gai.conf file is supported by glibc since version 2.5.

EXAMPLE

       The  default  table  according  to  RFC 3484  would  be  specified  with   the   following
       configuration file:

           label  ::1/128       0
           label  ::/0          1
           label  2002::/16     2
           label ::/96          3
           label ::ffff:0:0/96  4
           precedence  ::1/128       50
           precedence  ::/0          40
           precedence  2002::/16     30
           precedence ::/96          20
           precedence ::ffff:0:0/96  10

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