Strange local ping problem

[StarGhost]

Hi,

I've installed Debian 4.0 on my new server, and it arose a strange problem:

I could resolve and ping internet name successfully. However, I could only resolve local hosts, but when I try to ping them (something like pc1.univ.local), it indicated unknown host.

I went further by dumping with tcpdump, and surprisingly, when pinging local hosts, the ping program didn't even query the DNS server for name resolution at all.

This happens only to Debian, but for other such as Redhat, Fedora, Windows, etc. it's still fine.

Very much appreciate for an idea on what is happening.

SG.

[StarGhost]

And there is one phenomenon that I have just recognized:

Everytime I tried to ping a host name which ended up with .local then the ping program does not query the dns server for name resolution, but just printed out "unknown host".

Is this some kind of bug? Or has it been designed to function that way? And this happens only in Debian. Anyone, please try and give an idea.

SG.

[vijay_kernel]

Hi,

I understood your question as " you are not able to ping to the localhost",
If that is the case , try this ...

Open the file

# vi /etc/hosts

Add

<IP address> localhost <hostname>

save and close the file, try pinging now this time it should work.

[collie]

Hi there,

did you come to a solution to this?
I just experience the same trouble - would be nice to rid of it!

TX!
Collie

[StarGhost]

Hi there,

did you come to a solution to this?
I just experience the same trouble - would be nice to rid of it!

TX!
Collie

No, I didn't find the solution, and changed to Fedora. But I guess that is the way Debian behave, and there shouldn't be any problem with that. Otherwise, Debian works just fine for all you need.

If you want to confirm, try the ping source code. If you don't like it, just change to other distribution.

Regards,

SG.

[coopstah13]

edit /etc/resolv.conf to search your domain

search localdomain
nameserver x.x.x.x
nameserver y.y.y.y

etc. beware though every time you restart networking this file gets overwritten, might wanna use a chattr +i on it.

[wowbag1]

Hi I found this regarding Debian running with selinux and ping.
The link is:- SELinux/Setup - Debian Wiki

These additional permissions that need to be fulfilled will of course deny many things that you are used to.

For example, a regular user (depending on the policy) might not be able to do a "ping", unless you set the "user_ping" boolean.

But in many cases, there won't be a simple boolean to set - in some cases, a different behaviour is actually expected.
end quote.

Unfortunatley I do not know enough about debian or selinux to comment on whether this could be related to it but maybe it is worth considering.

[mawheadon]

Hello,

I have noticed a similar problem in OpenSuse 10.3. Originally I just thought it was me, but I have come across it on several PCs now. This thread leads me to think there is a problem or some kind of configuration trap. We have a Windows 2003 server at work, and when that was installed we decided to adopt a naming convention for our internal domain of pacsol.local. I think the '.local' is a kind of default for Microsoft. That may be why this problem has come to light. I have done some nslookups and pings on my PC (openSuse 10.3) with the following results:

wheadom@pcmwc521:~> nslookup
> gbpslase
Server: 10.1.2.5
Address: 10.1.2.5#53

Name: gbpslase.pacsol.local
Address: 10.1.2.5
> gbpslase.pacsol.local
Server: 10.1.2.5
Address: 10.1.2.5#53

Name: gbpslase.pacsol.local
Address: 10.1.2.5
> exit

wheadom@pcmwc521:~> ping gbpslase
PING gbpslase.pacsol.local (10.1.2.5) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from GBPSLASE.PACSOL.LOCAL (10.1.2.5): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.367 ms
64 bytes from GBPSLASE.PACSOL.LOCAL (10.1.2.5): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.419 ms

--- gbpslase.pacsol.local ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.367/0.393/0.419/0.026 ms
wheadom@pcmwc521:~> ping gbpslase.pacsol.local

wheadom@pcmwc521:~>

As you can see, nslookup can find our AS/400, gbpslase and gbpslase.pacsol.local. However, only the short name gbpslase can be pinged, gbpslase.pacsol.local cannot be pinged.

The major pain is that our intranet uses gbpslase.pacsol.local. So I have problems using our intranet.

MAW.

[mawheadon]

I have another PC on OpenSuse 10.2 and it works fine. I can ping gbpslase and gbpslase.pacsol.local without any problems. so it looks like 10.3 is the problem, or perhaps a more recent DNS resolver package that many/some of the distributions use.

MAW.

[JaseyWasey]

Hi all,

I also have this problem on Ubuntu 8.04, I've tested on a Debian Etch, and a suse 10.3 and the problem is on those too

however an older suse 10.2 box works fine.

the problem is pinging a domain that ends in "local" which Is quite annoying because it's quite widely used too.

anyone found a solution to this issue yet?

Jason