In iOS Wifi settings, each Wifi connection has a Search Domains section, usually blank.
What is this used for?
Best Answer
A Search Domain is simply a convenience that allows the system to convert host names to Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN). Anyplace you might use a FQDN, such as in the location bar of Safari or as an argument to ssh, you can use a simple host name. If the system can resolve that host name to an IP address (e.g. localhost -> 127.0.0.1) then it will use that. If that doesn't work, then the system will try appending the search domain to the host name and try again. If you specified more than one search domain, it will try them each in order.
If you are typically connecting to other Mac's on your LAN, then setting the search domain to local will make it easier to use just the other computer's names everywhere. If you are in a corporate environment and all your servers are available at name.example.com, then setting a search domain of example.com will allow you to access them by just using name.
Those are the two most typical use cases. When using a public Wi-Fi network, you should leave the Search Domain blank/empty to avoid accidentally connecting to some computer you didn't mean to connect to.
It should show up so the fact that it doesn't indicates a problem. In the past, Apple has focused on reliability for newer models and then subsequently released a X.1 version with under-the-hood work done for older devices. So it wouldn't surprise me if it is a deeper problem.
Two simple things to try right off would be a hard reboot of the device if you haven't already. You can do that by holding the home and power button down until you see the Apple logo. Also, make sure that you are on the latest version of iOS. iOS 9.0.2 is out now, so update and hopefully that will solve your issue.
If that doesn't work, you have to take it up a notch. You could try resetting all preferences to see if that solves the problem. Go to Settings - General - Reset - Erase all Settings to perform that function. If that doesn't work, the other main thing to try would be to restore the phone. Make sure you have a backup (I always like to have two), wipe the device, then restore.
You might have iCloud keychain turned on. Keychain saves Wifi passwords.
Try looking for it in Keychain access or just turn off keychain to prevent automatically accessing it.
Best Answer
A Search Domain is simply a convenience that allows the system to convert host names to Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN). Anyplace you might use a FQDN, such as in the location bar of Safari or as an argument to
ssh
, you can use a simple host name. If the system can resolve that host name to an IP address (e.g.localhost
-> 127.0.0.1) then it will use that. If that doesn't work, then the system will try appending the search domain to the host name and try again. If you specified more than one search domain, it will try them each in order.If you are typically connecting to other Mac's on your LAN, then setting the search domain to
local
will make it easier to use just the other computer's names everywhere. If you are in a corporate environment and all your servers are available atname.example.com
, then setting a search domain ofexample.com
will allow you to access them by just usingname
.Those are the two most typical use cases. When using a public Wi-Fi network, you should leave the Search Domain blank/empty to avoid accidentally connecting to some computer you didn't mean to connect to.