Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 14501
Host name set to localhost.localdomain
Last modified: 2008-05-01 11:37:56 EDT
Performed a text install with beta4. After the install, the machine reports "localhost.localdomain" as its host name, although I entered "toblerone.menthos.com" as the host name in the network setup in the install. Host name setting appears to be broken.
This defect is considered MUST-FIX for Winston Release-Candidate #1 ... I think there are some dups of this defect floating around -- they should be coalesced.
Brock, please help.
I don't know if this is related, but this machine sits behind an IP-masquerading box. If the installer somehow performs a reverse DNS lookup to verify the hostname, well obviously it will get the wrong IP/host name back, and thus maybe revert to localhost.localdomain? I noticed that the /etc/hosts listed the external IP of my masquerading box together with the host name of the beta box, which is obviously wrong. If the installer tries a reverse DNS lookup and then reverts to localhost.localdomain if the lookup returns an other result than expected it's wrong, because there are many situations like this where a reverse lookup will fail but the installer should work just fine if it trusted and used the entered values.
*** Bug 15107 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Was /etc/hosts correct, and just /etc/sysconfig/network wrong, or were both wrong?
In my case, both were somewhat wrong. I don't have the original /etc/hosts left, but as I remember it had the 127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain line correct, but listed the hostnames of the machine (toblerone.menthos.com, toblerone) together with the IP of the firewall/masquerading box on the next line. /etc/sysconfig/network has the hostname wrong, as you can see (will attach it).
Created attachment 2095 [details] /etc/sysconfig/network
Host resolution goes wrong if DNS is not reachable. See #13486 for the same thing in GUI.
Server Text install does the same thing in RC1. However, I remember Workstation (KDE) install said "Setting hostname to localhost.localdomain" at startup but showed the right hostname at the KDE login screen. Didn't test DNS resolution ... text server install: /etc/hosts says: 127.0.0.1 FQHN HN localhost.localdomain localhost (this might also be the reason why the KDE login screen shows the hostname). /etc/sysconfig/network: HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain /etc/resolv.conf is ok (search domain written correctly).
The rules for doing this seem to get it right "most of the time". We'll revisit this for Florence, but we're nervous about breaking things.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 16482 ***