#508053 Any reason for not providing host?

Package:
unbound-host
Source:
unbound
Description:
reimplementation of the 'host' command
Submitter:
Michal Čihař
Date:
2022-04-29 15:27:04 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
Tags:
#508053#5
Date:
2008-12-07 13:09:29 UTC
From:
To:
Hi

is there any particular reason why unbound-host does not provide host
binary in a same way that bind9-host? If there is such reason, I think
it should be documented somewhere (eg. in description or in
README.Debian).
#508053#10
Date:
2008-12-07 20:19:31 UTC
From:
To:
Michal Čihař wrote:

why should it?
#508053#15
Date:
2008-12-07 21:24:59 UTC
From:
To:
Hi

Dne Sun, 7 Dec 2008 15:19:31 -0500
Robert Edmonds <edmonds@debian.org> napsal(a):

Because package description says "reimplementation of the 'host'
command"? Just what is reason not to provide it? If I use unbound, I'd
also prefer to use host from it to avoid extra libraries which
bind9-host would bring to the system.
#508053#20
Date:
2009-07-21 16:03:34 UTC
From:
To:
I completely agree, unbound-host should replace/conflict host (which
is being removed) and bind9-host, or there should be an alternatives
entry coordinated between the various maintainers.
#508053#25
Date:
2009-07-21 16:50:06 UTC
From:
To:
martin f krafft wrote:

unbound-host isn't an alternative or replacement for bind9-host, IMO.
one is a command line interface to a recursive DNS lookup library and
one is a command line interface to an iterative DNS lookup library.  i
use both of them for different purposes, so i don't think unbound
packages will ever conflict with bind9 packages.

what exactly would be the use case for an alternatives entry for 'host'?
if the use case is 'query a recursive DNS server for a record' then
bind9-host and dnsqr from the djbdns package fit that description.  if
the use case is 'lookup a DNS record and print it like bind9-host does'
then bind9-host and unbound-host fit that description.

and 'reimplementation' probably isn't the right word to use in the
package description.
#508053#30
Date:
2009-07-21 17:13:06 UTC
From:
To:
also sprach Robert Edmonds <edmonds@debian.org> [2009.07.21.1850 +0200]:

And unbound-host -r.

Right. And it also supports all of the features of host and
bind9-host, I think, so once you have unbound-host installed, the
others aren't really necessary anymore, are they?
#508053#35
Date:
2022-04-29 15:24:23 UTC
From:
To:
[Replying to a bug report which is more than 10 years old..]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:13:06 +0200 martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> wrote:
..

10+ years has passed but unbound-host does not provide the same or even
similar functionality as bind9-host.  Yes it prints DNS records, but the
interface and the defaults are quite a bit different, to a point when you
can't substitute one for the other.

So marking as wontfix for now.

We can probably make it a low-priority alternative for "host" if we had
such alternative, - but we don't, iirc. There are other tools of this
theme too, eg my dnsget (udns-utils package).

/mjt