Why does "hostname -I" command give error while using IPv6 ?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Issue

  • hostname -I command gives error hostname lookup failure for IPv6 address on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Here is how the /etc/hosts looks like
127.0.0.1  localhost.localdomain localhost  
::  localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6  
2001:fe80:XX:baac:6fff:fe12:5552 hostname

Resolution

  • This is a bug in net-tools. This is fixed in net-tools-1.60-109.el6.1 on RHEL 6.3

Root Cause

Diagnostic Steps

  • Make sure ipv6 is enabled in the system.
  • Check sosreport, version of net-tools.

Output of "hostname -I" on machine which is configured with IPv6 address only:

 cat /etc/hosts
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost
::1                     localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
20XX1:XXX:1950::a           hostname
[root@ ~]# hostname -I
hostname: Host name lookup failure

Output of "hostname -I" on machine which is configured with both ipv4 A& IPv6 address :

[root@ ~]# cat /etc/hosts
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost
::1                     localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
2001:XXX:1950::a           hostname
10.XXX.254          hostname
[root@ ~]# hostname -I
10.XXX.254 2001:XXX:1950::a
[root@ ~]#

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