Strang name resolution behavior

[Stefan Puiu]

What do you have in /etc/resolv.conf? If that file points to a
different (unreachable?) nameserver, then your local stub resolver
(used by 99% of Linux apps) will fail while trying to query that
server.

You also might want to check /etc/nsswitch.conf, especially the
'hosts' directive - I have 'files dns' there, that is, first check
/etc/hosts and then the nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf.

You could check to see what's happening by running tcpdump or ethereal
in the background when trying the 'ping' command, and then see what
nameserver gets actually queried. Then you can look in your
configuration and try to find out what's wrong.

HTH,
Stefan.

On 4/19/06, Dr. Harry Knitter <harry at knitter-edv-beratung.de> wrote:
> Programs like ping don´t find any hosts if a FQDN is used. For:
> ping -c2 hostname.mydomain.local
> I always get:
> unknown host hostname
>
> Also (linux-)clients cannot resolv hostnames in the same way. The host command
> works, ping and requests from KDE-Applications fail.
> Windows clients seem to be able to get correct answers.
>
> What´s wrong?