Problem with local network

[Tim]

On Fri, 2006-01-20 at 20:37 +0000, Chris Jones wrote:
> [root at bilbo ~]# ifconfig eth0
> eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0F:EA:8C:2E:52
>           inet addr:192.168.0.3  Bcast:192.168.0.255  

Okay, this shows your own interface is apparently working.

> [root at bilbo ~]# ping -c4 192.168.0.3
> PING 192.168.0.3 (192.168.0.3) 56(84) bytes of data.
> 64 bytes from 192.168.0.3: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.069 ms

Pinging itself shows internally to the same PC that its network is
working.  (It probably doesn't really ping the hardware - some will,
some won't.)

> - --- 192.168.0.3 ping statistics ---
> 4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3003ms
> rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.054/0.058/0.069/0.011 ms, pipe 2
> [root at bilbo ~]# ping -c4 bilbo
> ping: unknown host bilbo

This is most likely because you're trying to use some DNS server that
knows nothing about your names.  Your router probably doesn't know what
machine names go with what IPs, some don't have a DNS server that works
that way.

> My /etc/hosts shows:
> # Do not remove the following line, or various programs
> # that require network functionality will fail.
> 127.0.0.1    localhost.localdomain localhost
> 192.168.0.3    bilbo.stow-jones.local bilbo
> 192.168.0.2    gandalf.stow-jones.local gandalf
> 192.168.0.5    frodo.stow-jones.local frodo

This looks fine.

> The last three entries are for the PC's on the network.
> 
> /etc/resolv.conf shows:
> nameserver 192.168.0.1
> nameserver 212.23.3.100
> nameserver 212.23.6.100
> search stow-jones.local
> # generated by NetworkManager, do not edit!
> 
> The first line refers to my router, the other two nameservers are my
> ISP's.

Your ISP's aren't going to resolve local names, and the router mightn't
either, unless specifically programmed to.

Does your /etc/nsswitch.conf file have a line in it like this?  (Below.)
And no other conflicting "hosts:  " lines?

hosts:      files dns

If so, then the machine should first check the hosts file for some
network resolution issues.  However, some things like dig will never
look at the hosts file.

> When I check the status of the named service, I get the following:
> [root at bilbo ~]# service named status
> rndc: couldn't get address for 'localhost': not found
> [root at bilbo ~]#

Now that's weird.  What happens when you ping localhost,
localhost.localdomain, and 127.0.0.1?

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