one host with multiple addresses. Which is chosen?

[Kevin Darcy]

Most clients I've looked at will fail over to the next address, but there
are wide variations in how long that failover takes. It can take 45
seconds or more. Most web-surfing users won't wait that long.


- Kevin

furufuru at ccsr.u-tokyo.ac.jp wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> If the DNS server returns multiple addresses for a single name, which
> address do the client (ping, telnet, netscape, etc.) use?
>
> I searched an archive of this newsgroup and found a thread about that
> question.  The answer was that that depends on the client and that in
> reality, clients tend to be dumb enough to try only the first address
> returned by the DNS server (or resolver if it shuffles the addresses).
>  This thread was dated 1997.  Have things changed since then?  If the
> answer is no, why?
>
> My domain is subnetted and some servers have more than one network
> interface connected to different subnets.  Suppose the DNS server
> returns "XXX.XXX.XXX.2" and "XXX.XXX.XXX.130" for a single hostname
> "thehost.mydomain.com", and my desktop machine is on the subnet
> XXX.XXX.XXX.0/25 .  Then I want
>
>        $ ping thehost.mydomain.com
>
> to ping XXX.XXX.XXX.2 .  But, that's not always the case.  (I'm using
> BIND 8.2.3 on Linux, Debian 2.2.)   Ping is OK, but I'd like, say, rcp
> to chose the closest interface.
>
> Thank you,
> Ryo