DNS Client on the Avaya Multiservice Switch

The Avaya Multiservice switch has DNS client capabilities that work in conjunction with the Command Line Interface (CLI). This feature is useful for testing connectivity (ping and traceroute) as well as copying files from TFTP servers.

It is not meant for use with the normal operation of the Avaya switch. Therefore, you should not use a DNS name to specify the location of the Avaya Multiservice switch's RADIUS server, SNTP Time server, etc. These parameters must be specified as IP addresses. However, DNS does work for the Avaya Multiservice Switch's Help File HTTP server.

In order for the DNS client functionality to work, it must be enabled on the switch and at least one name server IP address must be specified.

The following DNS Client features are supported:

• The DNS Client on the Avaya Multiservice switch is Stub Resolver (i.e. it does not support Iteration). This means that referral answers will be discarded. A Recursive DNS server must be used if you intend on using FQDN for which the configured DNS servers do not have resource records.
• Up to six DNS name servers can be configured.
• Up to six default DNS Domain Suffixes can be configured.
• When DNS is enabled, DNS names can be used in place of IP addresses for ping, telnet, connect, traceroute and copy tftp CLI commands.
• The DNS client name can consist of up to 255 characters.
• A single label within a DNS client name can consist of 63 characters.

Once enabled, you have the option of specifying a DNS suffix to add to unqualified host names. If so, you need only type the host name, in place of the IP address, without the suffix when entering commands. The suffix will be appended to host names that have no suffix.

For example: You can specify the avaya.com suffix. So when you want to ping hostA in the avaya.com domain, you need only type the host name without the suffix.

Avaya(configure)# ping hostA

instead of:

Avaya(configure)# ping hostA.avaya.com