for the 'short' name resolution from child to root domain, you will have to setup dns suffixes.....
otherwise, your clients will not know what to try to resolve...
what happens is this:
you ping westserv1
your client:
1 1ooks in its cache,
2 checks its host file,
3 appends its OWN domain to the host (westserv.west.factory.local) and asks its DNS server for the address....
4 the DNS server doesn't have this info so it says 'sorry!'.
if you add DNS suffixes, it will do 3) again, this time appending the second dns suffix (ie without .west.)
this time your dns server will know who to ask and it'll work.
this is necessary, unfortunately...
remember, it's just all 000 & 111. we need to tell them what to do.
Aftertaf
"Solutions are not the answer." - Richard Nixon