Ignite and name resolution

[Barry O Flanagan]

Hi all,

11i system with Ignite B.3.4.115 installed: My Ignite server cannot seem to resolve a hostname (hostname on its own or the FQDN) when I go to add new client for recovery from the IUX GUI, unless the hostname is put in my /etc/hosts, despite DNS being enabled and the hostname being resolvable on the command line.

My resolv.conf is configured correctly and my nsswitch.conf is currently set to :

hosts files dns nisplus

I've also got my .rhosts files configured on the two machines with the normal hostname not the FQDN.

Any help folks?

[Patrick Wallek]

First thing I would try is to change your nsswitch.conf configuration for hosts to look like:

hosts: files [NOTFOUND=continue] dns [NOTFOUND=continue] nisplus

[hpuxrox]

Barry,

Look in /etc/nsswitch.hp_defaults

This will give you what the default hosts: entry should looks like. I usualy dont change this unless im doing something special.

[Barry O Flanagan]

Thanks guys, but my /etc/nsswitch.conf is customer supplied and can't be changed as it has to comply with their standards! It has to be:

hosts files dns nisplus

So, question is - will resolutions continue to the next source if the [NOTFOUND=continue] is not explicitly declared in the switch?

Note if I do a nslookup on the command line for the host in question, it will resolve the hostname if its in /etc/hosts, but it will proceed onto DNS if it isn't found (despite the [NOTFOUND=continue] being missing from nsswitch.conf).

[Barry O Flanagan]

Just looking at the man page for nsswitch:

It mentions that applications linked with libc.1 will not exhibit the same behaviour (as apps that are not) unless a criterion is specified between the sources. So it looks like I have to be specific.

This is of course if Ignite is linked with libc.1 - how would I find out?

[Mark Greene_1]

Barry,

In answer to your last question, no it won't. From the man 4 switch page:

"...If no criteria is specified between two sources, then these default
actions are assigned to the statuses:

SUCCESS= return
NOTFOUND= return..."

It has been my experience that 9 times out of 10 when an application vendor requires a system parameter or config file to be setup a certain way and that way is non-standard or incomplete, that it is either an oversight or an outright error on the part of the app vendor. I'd definitely push-back on this if I were you, and point out to the vendor the default behavior above and ask them to explain just why they need the nsswitch file they way the say they do instead of what you need to do your job properly.

HTH
mark

[Barry O Flanagan]

Thanks Mark - that makes sense, but are we reading the same man page? My lli box for man 4 switch tells me the following :

"The default criteria are to continue on anything except SUCCESS; in other words, [SUCCESS=return NOTFOUND=continue UNAVAIL=continue TRYAGAIN=continue."

This would seem to contradict what you had?

[Mark Greene_1]

you are right, my apologies, I see you are running 11i, didn't notice that the first time.

For the libc questions, have you tried running "strings /opt/ignite/bin/ignite |grep libc"?

mark

[Barry O Flanagan]

Tried the "strings /usr/......" and didn't get any libc returned. Though, I'm not sure thats a conclusive method of finding out if Ignite is linked with libc!

I've just tried changing the switch to:

hosts files [NOTFOUND=continue] dns nisplus

...and after restarting my Ignite session, my hostname is now resolvable (with it present in DNS and not in the local hosts).