On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 09:43:43AM +0100, Darren Kenny wrote: > I've been trying to use my OpenSolaris machine with the local IPS server > (there > by default, just not enabled, but "svcs enable pkg/server" fixes that...) > > My machine is a laptop (surprise) that has the hostname and nodename > starbug-r600. > > With NWAM Phase 1, when I connect to the network, and the Automatic location > is > enabled, the /etc/hosts file is replaced with a simple file. > > This has the "net" effect (pardon the pun) of making it impossible to resolve > the hostname - I used to have the hostname as an alias for localhost[1] - but > when the new hosts file is moved in (and the old to Legacy) - this alias isn't > there. > > So when pkg/server gets started (and probably anything else like apache too) > then it enters maintenance mode since it can't resolve the hostname and in > turn > bind. Now, it's probably an issue in itself that pkg/server doesn't simply > fall > back to localhost, but that's another issue, IMO. > > Shouldn't try to ensure that whatever the network setup, we can resolve the > hostname to something?
This is definitely a dicey area that need more attention than it's been given so far. The high-level questions are, what needs to be done for phase 1, and what can be done later? The behavior you're seeing now is not acceptable for phase 1. A couple ways to deal with it in the short-term would be: * Add the nodename as an alias for localhost in the Automatic /etc/hosts file. This might be exactly what the user wants (as in your case); but I'm concerned that it could cause more problems than it solves. * Don't include an /etc/hosts file in the Automatic location. This is the conservative approach; shouldn't break anything, but also doesn't make any attempt to solve the problem of various services wanting to be able to resolve the nodename. I'm inclined toward the latter; this just feels like the time to be conservative. But if someone has suggestions on other ways to address this problem in the near-term, I'd love to hear them! Discussion on how to address it in the long term would be good, too. -renee
