Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!ece-csc!mcnc!xanth!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!husc6!rice!sun-spots-request
From: white@cs.unc.edu (Brian T. White)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: FTP problem on 3/60's
Message-ID: <8812011748.AA04934@white.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 88 12:37:10 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas
Lines: 15
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Thu, 1 Dec 88 12:48:40 EST
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 50, message 4 of 9

We had this problem when a ypclient machine did not have its own host name
in its own version of /etc/hosts.  This also disabled the "talk" program.
To fix, add the host name to /etc/hosts and reboot.  Apparently, something
in the kernel looks at /etc/hosts at boot time.  The message in /etc/hosts
that "If the yellow pages is running, this file is only consulted when
booting" is true;  it just doesn't mention that a machine consults its own
/etc/hosts at boot time to get its own host name for the purposes of ftp
and talk.  Without the /etc/hosts entry, booting apparently proceeds
normally;  you just can't use talk or ftp.

[[ I assure you, nothing in the kernel looks in "/etc/hosts".  It would be
absurd to hardwire a file name into the kernel like that!  What is almost
certainly true is that the FTP DAEMON (ftpd) wants to find its own
hostname at initialization time and is not able to do so because the local
host's entry is not in the host table.  --wnl ]]