[RHEL5] 'hostname -i' and 'hostname -d' fails with error 'Unknow host'

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5
  • net-tools-1.60-81.el5.x86_64
  • nscd-2.5-58.el5_6.3.x86_64

Issue

  • Our customer encountered a problem that 'hostname -i' and 'hostname -d' return 'Unknown host'.
# hostname -i
hostname: Unknown host
  • hostname command without any options works correctly.
  • When nscd stops, 'hostname -i' and 'hostname -d' work as expected.
  • DNS server can't resolve an IP address for the host.

Resolution

It seems permission on /etc/hosts is improper. Please correct it, and confirm if the issue is resolved.

$ tar tvf sosreport-xxxxxxxx-133441-b08173.tar.bz2._xxx_.bz2 '*etc/hosts'
-rw------- root/root       433 2013-04-05 10:11 xxxxxxxx-133441/etc/hosts

Diagnostic Steps

Accessing to /etc/hosts was refused. It must be the root cause.

6075  12:28:05.615806 open("/etc/hosts", O_RDONLY) = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)

Also, permission on /etc/hosts is improper. That's the reason that accessing was refused.

$ tar tvf sosreport-xxxxxxxx-133441-b08173.tar.bz2._xxx_.bz2 '*etc/hosts'
-rw------- root/root       433 2013-04-05 10:11 xxxxxxxx-133441/etc/hosts

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