Within a mixed Linux and Microsoft Windows network I ran into the following problem:
A host with the hostname linux1.firm.local
could be ping
ed and found
with nslookup
and dig
, but it was impossible to start a ssh
session.
The result kept being: Unknown host
.
Playing Cherlock Holmes revealed that this had to do with Avahi
and
mdns
, so with the .local
part of the hostname.
In my /etc/nsswitch.conf
the hosts:
line read:
(Using Ubuntu 8.04)
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4
This results in searching the IP address of the host through mdns4_minimal
.
The .local
domain now spoils it for me (use strings
on mdns4_minimal
and be amazed.
The problem can be solved very easy. Just replace the hosts:
line in the
/etc/nsswitch.conf
with:
hosts: files dns mdns4
See also: Avahi