Controlling name resolution

The order in which name resolution is performed depends on how you specify a hostname and whether the SM_IP_VERSIONS environment variable is set.

When a user specifies a hostname for an Smarts utility or the Perl API, the behavior occurs in the following order:

1. If the hostname includes an explicit Internet Protocol (IP) protocol (the suffix to the right of the colon), the hostname is resolved to an address of that protocol. For example:

   • frame.someDomain.vmware.com:v4 —Resolves to an IPv4 address.

     • frame:v6 —Resolves to an IPv6 address.

     • frame:v4v6 —Resolves to an IPv4 address, or, if that fails, to an IPv6 address.

     • frame:v6v4 —Resolves to an IPv6 address, or, if that fails, to an IPv4 address.

2. If the hostname does not include an explicit IP protocol, the utility searches for the SM_IP_VERSIONS environment variable and uses the setting specified for variable. The SM_IP_VERSIONS environment variable is described in “The SM_IP_VERSIONS environment variable” on page 109.

3. If the environment variable is not set and the IP protocol is not explicitly provided, the default behavior is to resolve the hostname as an IPv6 address, or, if that fails, to an IPv4 address (the behavior for the v6v4 suffix).

   Additional information about discovery and name resolution is provided in the Smarts IP Management Suite Discovery Guide and the Smarts IP Manager Deployment Guide.