Network strangeness

[Aaron Konstam]

On Wed, 2008-04-30 at 15:01 +0100, Chris G wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 08:55:32AM -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> > I have two machines on a home network:
> > cyrus - wireless
> > saturn - wired
> > 
> > On cyrus : ping saturn and host saturn both fail saying saturn can't be
> > found. However, ssh saturn works.
> > 
> > On saturn: ping cyrus works but host cyrus fails.
> > ssh cyrus, works 
> > 
> > I don't use iptables. Any explanations for this behavior?
> > 
> > Errors are like: 
> > ** server can't find saturn: NXDOMAIN
> > 
> > I suspect that some things use the local /etc/host bu others do not.
> 
> Certainly the 'host' command doesn't use /etc/hosts so that suggests:-
> 
>     cyrus can't find saturn using DNS but saturn is in its /etc/hosts
>     file so ssh works.
> 
>     saturn can find cyrus using DNS, it may well be able to find it
>     using /etc/hosts as well.
> 
> I wonder if you have things set up so ping (ICMP packets?) are refused
> somewhere in the system so that ping will never work regardless of
> DNS, routing, etc.
I agree with your analysis but I don't understand the asymmetry of the
behavior. I am unaware that I ban ping but that may be a DNS thing.
--
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Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes.
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Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net