[cobalt-users] Hidden backdoor in GUI to put wildcards in DNS!

["Edwin Nouwen" <cobalt@xxxxxxxx>]

He's probably gonna kill me for this, but I was too excited to keep this to
myself.. :)

A buddy of mine (a Dutch guy like me who however managed to get himself one
of those 'well' paying jobs:) works for Sun Cobalt in Mountain View,
California and is partly responsible for firmware development on the RaQ3
and RaQ4. Needless to say I keep nagging him about software updates for the
GUI that I'd love to see and cosmetic changes would improve the GUI
immensely (the GUI as it is now is much too slow!)..

Anyways, I was talking to him the other day complaining about why I can't
put wildcards (*) in the host field of the DNS through the GUI.. I mean; if
I edit the named files manually I CAN put an '*' in, but the GUI refuses
them, which is total nonsense.. If the GUI would stop checking for it and
would just let it pass, it would work like a charm..

He agreed with me that this was not a hardware or OS limitation but simply a
GUI limitation that was built in deliberatly. However.. it IS possible to
put wildcards in the DNS using the GUI!! .. because the developers have
built in a backdoor for testing purposes!!

If you want a wildcard hostname in your DNS, the GUI won't accept '*' as a
hostname..
BUT.. if you enter 'ts1lirpa4' (without the quotes) as hostname, it will
show up in the GUI as you entered it, but will be put in the named files as
an '*'..

Which is MUUUUUCH easier than having to create include files in the named
directory for every domainname!
Just thought I'd share...


Edwin Nouwen
(edwin@xxxxxxxx)