Cannot resolve localhost

[Matthew Seaman]

On 14/02/2013 22:35, Martin Pola wrote:
> I'm trying to get my FreeBSD system to resolve localhost into
> 127.0.0.1, but unfortunately it doesn't work. It appears the resolver is
> never reading from /etc/hosts, where I have this line:
> 127.0.0.1 localhost
> 
> Here's a sample output of what I get when I try to resolve the name:
> $ nslookup localhost
> ;; Got recursion not available from 91.90.24.250, trying next server
> Server:         8.8.8.8
> Address:        8.8.8.8#53
>  
> ** server can't find localhost: NXDOMAIN
>  
> What am I missing?

The understanding that looking stuff up in the DNS[*] is never going to
return anything from the contents of your /etc/hosts file?

You can do a more generic lookup using whatever means are configured in
your /etc/nsswitch.conf by:

% getent hosts localhost
::1               localhost
127.0.0.1         localhost

although with localhost, that really should also be available in the
DNS, both forwards and reverse:

% dig +short IN A localhost
127.0.0.1
% dig +short IN AAAA localhost
::1
% dig +short -x 127.0.0.1
localhost.
% dig +short -x ::1
localhost.

Although I note that Google's DNS resolver specifically *doesn't* have it...

% dig +short @8.8.8.8 -x ::1
% dig +short @8.8.8.8 -x 127.0.0.1
% dig +short @8.8.8.8 localhost
% dig +short @8.8.8.8 IN AAAA localhost

Just a peculiarity of the Google DNS service.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

[*] BTW. nslookup is *so* 20th Century.  All the cool kids are using
dig(1) or drill(1) nowadays.

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey


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