Round-robin DNS broken by getaddrinfo in Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • DNS hostname lookups handled by the getaddrinfo(3) glibc function are no longer returned in "random" order when multiple A record answers are available in DNS.
  • Answers are sorted so some IP addresses are always returned first, thus "breaking" round-robin DNS.
  • This may also apply to entries in /etc/hosts if there are multiple entries for the same host.
  • Glibc resolver getaddrinfo(), rsh, and ssh do not try IP addresses in the order defined in /etc/hosts.
  • How do I disable IPV4 sorting enforced by RFC-3484?
  • How do I use the scopev4 directive in /etc/gai.conf to disable IPV4 sorting?
  • Is there a sortv4 off keyword option for /etc/gai.conf?

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 5 or later
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • Multiple DNS A records for a hostname or multiple entries in /etc/hosts for a hostname

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