Oracle Listener cannot understand hostname

[Praveen Bezawada]

Hi
In the listener.ora, if the hostname is used the listener is failing to get started, whereas if we use the IP address of the machine it is working fine.
Also getip `hostname` does not give any output when executed as oracle user.
Is there any problem with machine hostname configuration. Everything seems to be fine with /etc/hosts and /etc/rc.config.d/netconf
Are we missing something.
Br
Praveen

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi Praveen,

If getip will not work then you definitely have a problem with hostname resolution. When you say that user getip fails as user oracle does that mean that it does work with other users? Don't just try it as root; also try as another regular users. We're looking for permission problems.

Check the permissions on /etc/hosts (should be 644 owned by root). If you are running DNS,
check both the contents and permissions of /etc/resolv.conf and test with nslookup.
If you are running NIS, make sure that ypcat hosts works. Also, check /etc/nsswitch.conf and make sure that it is set correctly.

One of these should point you in the right direction.

Clay

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Praveen,

Check these things
1. /etc/nsswitch.conf ( Check fr hosts entry weather it's looks for DNS the local file.)
2.Check resolv.conf in /etc
3. Try running with nslookup whether it resolves the address with IP or by name

It seems this is a DNS issue here.

..USA..

[Wodisch]

Hello Praveen,

have you checked the permissions of your "/etc/hosts",
"/etc/resolv.conf", and "/etc/nsswitch.conf"?
Your problems will occur if only root has read permissions
there...

HTH,
Wodisch

[vikrantl]

This syntax might help.
cat /etc/nsswitch.conf

hosts: files [NOTFOUND=continue UNAVAIL=continue] dns [NOTFOUND=return UNAVAIL=continue TRYAGAIN=return]

OR
Check traceroute hostname
and correct any router settings.

[Praveen Bezawada]

in nsswitch.conf the configuration for hosts is

hosts: files [NOTFOUND=continue] dns

and /etc/hosts has 444 bin:bin ...
this seems to be OK...???

[Praveen Bezawada]

HI
I had missed out nsswitch.conf, the permissions were not set right.
Now everything is working fine. Thanks everyone.