Question

Solaris 10 ingoring /etc/hosts

Asked by: jculkincys

I have an install of Solaris 10.

I want to make an entry for a certain server (ex: www.google.com) in /etc/hosts so that when the server makes a request for this name it finds it in /etc/hosts and not from the DNS servers that are configured (correctly) in /etc/resolv.conf

I have verified that /etc/nsswitch.conf has the following setting:
hosts:      files dns

Also I have stopped the nscd service

Any idea on how else I can go about troubleshooting this?

Its seems that that /etc/nsswitch.conf  is not being read

I can force the server to read from /etc/hosts by moving /etc/resolv.conf to /etc/resolv.old

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Asked On
2009-10-27 at 13:18:15ID24848709
Tags

Solaris 10 /etc/hosts

Topics

Sun Solaris

,

Unix Networking

,

Unix Setup

Participating Experts
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: turnbulldPosted on 2009-10-27 at 14:21:26ID: 25677699

Given that moving resolv.conf helps the situation, perhaps this is not the issue.  Still, the OS does not read /etc/hosts, it reads /etc/inet/hosts.  The /etc/hosts file has to be a link back to /etc/inet/hosts.  If you have a real file at /etc/hosts, you can change it all you want and the system will ignore those changes (drives ya nuts when this happens).  

Check that the ls -l /etc/hosts shows it to be a link to /etc/inet/hosts.  If not, change /etc/inet/hosts to be what you want, move /etc/hosts aside, and run this command:

ln -s /etc/inet/hosts /etc/hosts

If /etc/hosts is, indeed, a link to /etc/inet/hosts already, check file privs on /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/nsswitch.conf; they should be mode 644.  That would be the #2 reason that I've seen for the behavior described.

 

by: jculkincysPosted on 2009-10-27 at 14:59:12ID: 25678075

Hmm - still no luck

bash-3.00# ls -l /etc/hosts
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root          12 Oct 23 15:11 /etc/hosts -> ./inet/hosts
bash-3.00# ls -l /etc/nsswitch.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root     sys         1259 Oct 27 15:52 /etc/nsswitch.conf
bash-3.00# ls -l /etc/resolv.conf
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root          92 Oct 27 10:11 /etc/resolv.conf
bash-3.00#


Why does it seems to read from /etc/hosts when /etc/resolv.conf it removed from the quation by renaming it to something like /etc/resolv.old?

 

by: yuzhPosted on 2009-10-27 at 17:47:47ID: 25679123

You don't need to speciffy  www.google.com file in /etc/hosts, you need to use the correct DNS settings to access to the internet, please have a look at my answer in http:Q_21497552.html to fix the problem.

 

by: bluPosted on 2009-10-28 at 05:43:23ID: 25682550

Try making up a domain and host and put that into the /etc/inet/hosts file, then do a look up on that. Is the IP address in the /etc/inet/hosts file being returned or is it saying host not found? Also, what is the ipnodes line in the nscd.conf file set to? Try setting it to match the hosts line.

 

by: jculkincysPosted on 2009-10-28 at 07:16:30ID: 25683432

YUZH:

I am not having a problem connecting to the internet. I am having a problem overriding a value in DNS with my local hosts file

BLU:

Here is some information for you:

bash-3.00# ping www.myfakedomainxyz.com
ping: unknown host www.myfakedomainxyz.com
bash-3.00# echo "127.0.0.1 www.myfakedomainxyz.com" >> /etc/inet/hosts
bash-3.00# ping www.myfakedomainxyz.com
www.myfakedomainxyz.com is alive
bash-3.00# ping www.google.com
www.google.com is alive
bash-3.00# ssh www.google.com
^C
# it makes sense that I can't ssh to www.google.com now


bash-3.00# echo "127.0.0.1 www.google.com" >> /etc/inet/hosts
bash-3.00# ping www.google.com
www.google.com is alive
bash-3.00# ssh www.google.com
^C
bash-3.00# # I should be able to ssh to www.google.com now since it should be pointing to 127.0.0.1
bash-3.00#


bash-3.00# grep hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf
# DNS for hosts lookups, otherwise it does not use any other naming service.
# "hosts:" and "services:" in this file are used only if the
hosts:      files dns
# before searching the hosts databases.
bash-3.00#


bash-3.00# cat /etc/resolv.conf
domain myrealdomain.com
nameserver mycorrect nameserver that is working
search myrealdomain.com
bash-3.00#

ipnodes line in /etc/nscd.conf

bash-3.00# grep ipnodes /etc/nscd.conf
#       Currently supported cache names: passwd, group, hosts, ipnodes
        positive-time-to-live   ipnodes         3600
        negative-time-to-live   ipnodes         5
        suggested-size          ipnodes         211
        keep-hot-count          ipnodes         20
        old-data-ok             ipnodes         no
        check-files             ipnodes         yes
bash-3.00#


 

by: jculkincysPosted on 2009-10-28 at 07:38:08ID: 25683705

Gotta be Solaris specific

I can do this on Linux no problem
[root@embarcadero root]# ping www.google.com
PING www.l.google.com (64.233.169.105) 56(84) bytes of data.
[root@embarcadero root]# echo "127.0.0.1 www.google.com" >> /etc/hosts
[root@embarcadero root]# ping www.google.com
PING www.google.com (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.

 

by: jculkincysPosted on 2009-10-28 at 08:43:14ID: 25684516

I guess it was not Solaris specific because I could do it sucessfully on other solaris boxes

the magic that I needed was

ln -s /etc/inet/hosts /etc/inet/ipnodes

it seems that in earlier versions of Solaris 10 (per update 4?) /etc/inet/ipnodes was a stand alone file and not linked. If I made the change to this file I for the desired result

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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