Gnome and /etc/hosts

Message

trico · Post by **trico** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 10:41 pm

I just finished installing Gnome and Xorg. When I started Gnome the first itme (and maybe the second), it complained about nor finding the system in /etc/hosts. It's true, its not in there. I'm using dhcp to assign a address on boot and it looks to me like the hosts file wants a static ip address. So the first question is - how do I make Gnome happy with my system?

I started the GUI several times, and it seems that the last couple time Gnome stopped complaining. I've made no changes to /etc/hosts. So - what's going on? Anyone know?

Just checked, /etc/hosts contains the localhosts entry and some info on ipv6. Nothing more.

trico

CompNerd · Post by **CompNerd** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 10:59 pm

Hmm, Im not sure if this would work, but you can give the address 127.0.0.1 the name of your machine along with localhost. Its a nasty hack, but it just may work

CompNerd

trico · Post by **trico** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 12:02 am

A correction to my original post - Gnome continues to complain whenever I start it up.

trico

PS: This is my first post from my new gentoo linux system. Yay!

LouTheBlueGuru · Post by **LouTheBlueGuru** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 12:37 am

I always put 127.0.0.1 in my hosts file. I f your using dhcp then in your /etc/conf.d/net file, make sure the following line is uncommented:

ifconfig_eth0=( "dhcp" )

The fact that your network is working means that it must be pulling an IP address. With dhcp this address is not static, but can change. You can run ifconfig and find out the address dhcp is providing and then put that in the hosts file. Be aware, however that this address can cahnge if your network configuration changes.

trico · Post by **trico** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 1:37 am

Here's my /etc/hosts file:

127.0.0.1 localhost
# IPV6 versions of localhost and co
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

Here's the pertinant section of /etc/conf.d/net:
# For DHCP set iface_eth? to "dhcp"
# For passing options to dhcpcd use dhcpcd_eth?
#
iface_eth0="dhcp"
#dhcpcd_eth0="..."

Gnome complains with the above settings... I uncommented the above iface_eth0="dhcp" during installation, but didn't uncomment the second statement since I didn't have a clue what option I would pass to dhcpcd.

I've been googling on the subject and have found several posts from people with similar problems (with various distributions). There appear to be two recomendations 1) write a script to snatch the assigned IP address from ifconfig and write it into /etc/hosts in the appropriate format. And 2) just enter 127.0.0.2 myhost.mydomain myhost. The latter sounds odd to me, but they claim it works.

The man pages for hosts note that with the advent of DNS that the /etc/hosts file is much less important than it used to be. But offer no enlightenment why Gnome should be interested in using it.

I'll try option 2 above when Openoffice completes emerging.

trico

Putrifier · Post by **Putrifier** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 2:12 am

127.0.0.1 localhost kix

Thats my /etc/hosts.
I had the same problem as you till a few days ago.that fixed it.

(kix is my pc name, btw.its the the part that you see in your bash shell, "root@kix #" ).

thats the only line you need to change, none of that dhcp stuff. the only reason Gnome is whining, is because it cant reach your PC, (kix in my case). it doesnt have a clue where to find it. by adding your hostname up there, you are telling it that your pc ip is 127.0.0.1 . because, remember, Gnome and KDE are nothing more than clients, connected via a network to the server (which is XFree, Xorg or whatever you use). nothing more.

trico · Post by **trico** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:58 am

That did the trick. Thanks.

trico