From: Guido Kueppers, M.A. (Kueppers@.uni-bonn.de)
Date: 12/31/69


From: Kueppers@.uni-bonn.de (Guido Kueppers, M.A.)
Subject: Re: Net-2 set up
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 09:45:51 MEZ

In article <1993Jun16.052118.19214@leland.Stanford.EDU>
malouf@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rob Malouf) writes:
 
>In article <1993Jun16.005940.25408@uws.EDU.AU> cshorter@st.nepean.uws.edu.au (Colin Shorter) writes:
>>Brian Olsen (bolsen@cs.umr.edu) wrote:
>>: I put the hostname -vS comman at the top of my /etc/rc.local and it
>>: continally gives me an error "unknown host dowland" or something along
>>: those lines. Also when I type:
>>: /bin/hostname -vS dowland
>>: on the command line I get the same error.
>>
>>I too get this same error. I did find that I could set the hostname to a
>>numeric. e.g. the following work: /bin/hostname -vS 0
>
>Whatever hostnames you refer to must be in the /etc/hosts file or must
>by resolvable by named. Try putting this in your /etc/hosts:
>
> 127.0.0.1 localhost
> 127.0.0.1 dowland # if you have a real IP address, put it here
>
>That solved the problem for me.
>
>Rob Malouf
>malouf@csli.stanford.edu
 
There's one more thing to observe, and I will quote it from the NET-FAQ:
 
        - Create the file /usr/etc/inet/host.conf. This file tells the
          name-binding libraries how to look up names: in this case, we're
          going to tell the libraries to check first /usr/etc/inet/hosts
          and THEN ask the nameserver (if any). So, create
          /usr/etc/inet/host.conf. It should contain only these 2 lines:
                order hosts,bind
                multi
          This is VERY IMPORTANT. If you don't create this file then you
          probably won't be able to look up names as expected.
 
So what you need is a _hosts_ file AND a file _host.conf_. The exact
location of these depend on your installation/distribution. The _/etc_
directory worked for me.
The above problem reminded me once more of the fact, that reading the faq's
might lead to surprisingly simple solutions.
 
Guido Kueppers
 
e-mail: Kueppers@uni-bonn.de