man Sys::Hostname::Long (3): Try every conceivable way to get full hostname

SYNOPSIS

use Sys::Hostname::Long;
$host_long = hostname_long;

DESCRIPTION

How to get the host full name in perl on multiple operating systems (mac, windows, unix* etc)

DISCUSSION

This is the SECOND release of this code. It has an improved set of tests and improved interfaces - but it is still often failing to get a full host name. This of course is the reason I wrote the module, it is difficult to get full host names accurately on each system. On some systems (eg: Linux) it is dependent on the order of the entries in /etc/hosts.

To make it easier to test I have testall.pl to generate an output list of all methods. Thus even if the logic is incorrect, it may be possible to get the full name.

Attempt via many methods to get the systems full name. The Sys::Hostname class is the best and standard way to get the system hostname. However it is missing the long hostname.

Special thanks to David Sundstrom and Greg Bacon for the original Sys::Hostname

SUPPORT

This is the original list of platforms tested.

        MacOS           Macintosh Classic               OK
        Win32           MS Windows (95,98,nt,2000...)
                        98                              OK
        MacOS X         Macintosh 10                    OK
                        (other darwin)                  Probably OK (not tested)
        Linux           Linux UNIX OS                   OK
                        Sparc                           OK
        HPUX            H.P. Unix 10?                   Not Tested
        Solaris         SUN Solaris 7?                  OK (now)
        Irix            SGI Irix 5?                     Not Tested
        FreeBSD         FreeBSD                         OK

A new list has now been compiled of all the operating systems so that I can individually keep information on their success.

THIS IS IN NEED OF AN UPDATE AFTER NEXT RELEASE.

Acorn - Not yet tested

AIX - Not yet tested

Amiga - Not yet tested

Atari - Not yet tested

AtheOS - Not yet tested

BeOS - Not yet tested

BSD - Not yet tested

BSD/OS - Not yet tested

Compaq - Not yet tested

Cygwin - Not yet tested

Concurrent - Not yet tested

DG/UX - Not yet tested

Digital - Not yet tested

DEC OSF/1 - Not yet tested

Digital UNIX - Not yet tested

DYNIX/ptx - Not yet tested

EPOC - Not yet tested

FreeBSD - Not yet tested

Fujitsu-Siemens - Not yet tested

Guardian - Not yet tested

HP - Not yet tested

HP-UX - Not yet tested

IBM - Not yet tested

IRIX - Not yet tested - 3rd hand information might be ok.

Japanese - Not yet tested

JPerl - Not yet tested

Linux

Debian - Not yet tested
Gentoo - Not yet tested
Mandrake - Not yet tested
Red Hat- Not yet tested
Slackware - Not yet tested
SuSe - Not yet tested
Yellowdog - Not yet tested

LynxOS - Not yet tested

Mac OS - Not yet tested

Mac OS X - OK 20040315 (v1.1)

MachTen - Not yet tested

Minix - Not yet tested

MinGW - Not yet tested

MiNT - Not yet tested

MPE/iX - Not yet tested

MS-DOS - Not yet tested

MVS - Not yet tested

NetBSD - Not yet tested

NetWare - Not yet tested

NEWS-OS - Not yet tested

NextStep - Not yet tested

Novell - Not yet tested

NonStop - Not yet tested

NonStop-UX - Not yet tested

OpenBSD - Not yet tested

ODT - Not yet tested

OpenVMS - Not yet tested

Open UNIX - Not yet tested

OS/2 - Not yet tested

OS/390 - Not yet tested

OS/400 - Not yet tested

OSF/1 - Not yet tested

OSR - Not yet tested

Plan 9 - Not yet tested

Pocket PC - Not yet tested

PowerMAX - Not yet tested

Psion - Not yet tested

QNX

4 - Not yet tested
6 (Neutrino) - Not yet tested

Reliant UNIX - Not yet tested

RISCOS - Not yet tested

SCO - Not yet tested

SGI - Not yet tested

Symbian - Not yet tested

Sequent - Not yet tested

Siemens - Not yet tested

SINIX - Not yet tested

Solaris - Not yet tested

SONY - Not yet tested

Sun - Not yet tested

Stratus - Not yet tested

Tandem - Not yet tested

Tru64 - Not yet tested

Ultrix - Not yet tested

UNIX - Not yet tested

U/WIN - Not yet tested

Unixware - Not yet tested

VMS - Not yet tested

VOS - Not yet tested

Windows

CE - Not yet tested
3.1 - Not yet tested
95 - Not yet tested
98 - Not yet tested
Me - Not yet tested
NT - Not yet tested
2000 - Not yet tested
XP - Not yet tested

z/OS - Not yet tested

KNOWN LIMITATIONS

Unix

Most unix systems have trouble working out the fully qualified domain name as it to be configured somewhere in the system correctly. For example in most linux systems (debian, ?) the fully qualified name should be the first entry next to the ip number in /etc/hosts

        192.168.0.1     fred.somwhere.special   fred

If it is the other way around, it will fail.

Mac

TODO

Contributions

        David Dick
        Graeme Hart
        Piotr Klaban
        * Extra code from G
        * Dispatch table
        * List of all operating systems.

Solaris * Fall back 2 - TCP with DNS works ok
* Also can read /etc/defaultdomain file

AUTHOR

Originally by Scott Penrose <[email protected]>

Contributions: Michiel Beijen <[email protected]>