[erlang-questions] what *exactly* are sname and name ?

[Ulf Wiger]

Den 2006-12-09 15:13:23 skrev Joe Armstrong <erlang@REDACTED>:

> Hello,
>
> Question - *exactly* what is a "name" and "sname".
>
> I do not want to know how to use them (I know)  I want to know what they
> mean?
>
> I'm writing chapters on "distributed erlang".
>
> Can anybody complete the sentence(s).
>
>       The command line argument  "-sname X" means ...
>
>       The command line argument  "-name Y" means....
>
>       The difference between sname and name is ...
>
>       Thanks

Just to point out the obvious, this is what the 'erl' man page says about  
-name and -sname:

-name Name
Makes the Erlang runtime system into a distributed node. This flag invokes  
all network servers necessary for a node to become distributed. See  
net_kernel(3). It is also ensured that epmd runs on the current host  
before Erlang is started. See epmd(1).
The name of the node will be Name@REDACTED, where Host is the fully qualified  
host name of the current host. For short names, use the -sname flag  
instead.

-sname Name
Makes the Erlang runtime system into a distributed node, similar to -name,  
but the host name portion of the node name Name@REDACTED will be the short  
name, not fully qualified.
This is sometimes the only way to run distributed Erlang if the DNS  
(Domain Name System) is not running. There can be no communication between  
nodes running with the -sname flag and those running with the -name flag,  
as node names must be unique in distributed Erlang systems.

-- 
Ulf Wiger