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sanity
Asked: 2011-02-03 08:41:36 +0800 CST

Getting "unknown host" on hostname despite adding it to /etc/hosts

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I have an Ubuntu server called crow:

$ hostname
crow

But when I try to ping it (from itself), I get unknown host:

$ ping crow
ping: unknown host crow

This is despite explicitly adding crow to /etc/hosts:

$ sudo cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1       localhost crow

What am I doing wrong?

Additional info in response to comments:

The hosts line of /etc/nsswitch.conf looks like this:

hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
ubuntu hosts

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Check permissions on /etc/hosts and /etc/nsswitch.conf files. They should be world-readable.

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