Re: dns error

[Mark . Burgess]

On 31 Jul, Kevin Eberman wrote:
> I often get the error below when updating clients via cfengine.  It is
> an intermittent problem and without making changes to DNS (we are not
> running NIS) it will work.  Any help would be appreciated.
> 
> bash-2.03$ cfrun -f /techops/config/cfengine/newHost -d
> CFRUNOPTIONS string: 
> Domain name = kenamea.com
> Appending [stage-ms.kenamea.com]
> host item: stage-ms.kenamea.com ()
> cfrun: calling stage-ms.kenamea.com - 0
> pid = 12109 i = 0
> Connecting to server stage-ms.kenamea.com with options  
> Trying to connect to stage-ms.kenamea.com = 172.17.12.8, port h=5308
> n=5308
> Identifying as 172.17.12.5 i.e. gaia, with signature 0
> 
> stage-ms.kenamea.com replies..
> 
> cf:stage-ms:/etc/cfengine/cf.main:115: DNS lookup failure. Unknown host 
> gethostbyname: : Error 0
> Culprit: gaia
> Make sure that fully qualified names can be looked up at your site!
> i.e. prep.ai.mit.edu, not just prep. If you use NIS or /etc/hosts
> make sure that the full form is registered too as an alias!
> 
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Various things might cause this:

incorrectly configured lookup order in nsswitch.conf or equivalent.
Is nameservice lookup in /etc/hosts or NIS or DNS? Sometimes
timeout values in contacting a nameserver cause trouble across
subnets. Sometimes NFS or other kernel locked stuff can lead
to delays which cause a time-out. 

I used to see this more often than I do now, especially with
linux. You could try upgrading your cfengine. Other than that,
I'm not sure. It's not a problem with cfengine itself, anyway.

Mark

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