Hi Tim, > That's a rather complex explanation, which sounds like you're giving > each machine a unique hosts file, where their own hostnames are written > differently than the other machines on the LAN. I wouldn't do that. It sounds to me quite normal what he says. Every host has a hosts-file where all other machines are listed as <ip> <fqdn> <short name> And the local machine has its name added to the 127.0.0.1 line. > It gets messier if a box has two addresses (whether or not it has two > network interfaces. In that situation, I don't try associating the same > hostname with two different addresses, it causes problems. I'll have a > variation for the second address. I don't see any problem with a machine that has the same name on different addresses. One of our servers actually does have 10 NIC's, of which some are bonded and some have aliases, leaving it with about a dozen IP-adresses. It still has only one hostname. Depending on who or what is talking to it, it will know which IP to use. (Of course, you know that.) > You don't need to put hostnames into specific interface configuration > files. The computer *works* *out* its host name from its IP. Normally the hostname is put into the file /etc/sysconfig/network. And regarding the working out the hostname: it does not even need to know its own name to send or receive data. All it needs to know is the IP-address of the remote machine. It will not do reverse or any look-up to resolve its own hostname to do a telnet to a remote server. >> Ping works great between all of the machines for both <otherX> and >> <otherX>.localdomain, lists the 192.168.10.x address like a happy camper >> should This part from OP is a dead give-away that his hosts file are apparently working fine, that his network configuration is okay and he has packets going out and being received. Name resolving, gateways, whatever has no part of it. If that would be the case, ping would not work. > The default configuration for a mail server has it only listening to the > local loopback addresses, it needs customising to accept connections > from another machine. That is a very probably answer. And easy for Paul to test. If he can do locally a telnet to 127.0.0.1 on port 25, but not remotely to the IP of the server, his most likely case is the mailserver not listening, or a firewall. > And may need customising for the domain names > that you are using. And, you may have fun with mail is you don't use a > DNS server, since hosts files can't answer MX queries. Mailservers will > also do the IP/name look-up game that I've already detailed. He is not doing any MX-queries, he is telnetting to the mailserver. Only after the mailserver responds will it do a reverse look-up. And, as the remotes IP is in the hosts file, will happily continue. It would even if it were not, accept it can't list the hosts name then in logfile, but will only use the IP-address. > You might want to expand upon *why* you're wanting to use different > FQDNs for machines. That may point out where the snag is. As far as I see, he is not. > It does sound like IP and name resolution is your prime problem. No, after all he can ping them by name. Name resolving works. And reverse lookups by the mail server are done after it has made a connection. > For anything more than about three machines I prefer using DNS than > hosts files. It gets a pain having to synchronise changes across > several computers, particularly if you experiment and change names and > IPs around. DNS is indeed the way to go for a larger environment. Three computers? I would probably use hosts files. But then, you tell you switch the IP's often. And although off topic I really wonder: why?? A servers IP-address is about one of the most static things I can think of. Note: sorry if this sounded a bit like nit-picking, Tim (as it feels to me now I read it over again). That was not the intention, although I want to make clear to the OP that name resolving is *not* his primary problem, seeing he can ping by name. -- Regards, André -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
