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Bug 837069 - hostname -f may not return FQDN
Summary: hostname -f may not return FQDN
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Classification: Red Hat
Component: net-tools
Version: 6.5
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: rc
: ---
Assignee: Jiri Popelka
QA Contact: qe-baseos-daemons
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-07-02 16:22 UTC by Jim Pirzyk
Modified: 2012-07-03 13:22 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-07-03 13:22:12 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Jim Pirzyk 2012-07-02 16:22:48 UTC 
Description of problem:

the 'hostname -f' output may actually be a short hostname output, i.e. the same as the output of 'hostname -s'.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 1.60-110.el6_2


How reproducible:  Ever time with a config change.


Steps to Reproduce:
1. edit /etc/hosts to not have the FQDN as the first hostname for the IP
2. run 'hostname -f' command, compare to output of 'hostname -s' and 'hostname'
3.
  
Actual results:

pirzyk@centos:~
2>hostname
centos.home.pirzyk.org
pirzyk@centos:~
3>hostname -f
centos
pirzyk@centos:~
4>hostname -s
centos
pirzyk@centos:~
5>g centos /etc/hosts
192.168.1.15	centos centos.home.pirzyk.org centos


Expected results:

Hostname should detect that the output of 'hostname -f' is the same length as 'hostname -s'.  Once this is detected it *could* do one of at least 2 things:

1) Throw an error (return non-zero to the shell) and complain about the configuration error.

2) use other heuristics to find the FQDN, like in the example using the output of 'hostname' command.

Additional info:

MacOSX, FreeBSD and Solaris are immune from this configuration error causing 'hostname -f' to fail.  Solaris does not actually support the -f option and the other 2 just silently ignore it.  They all expect hostname to be set to FQDN.
Comment 2 Jiri Popelka 2012-07-03 13:01:23 UTC 
Yes, the '-f' option depends on configuration (/etc/hosts).
See the 'THE FQDN' section in hostname(1).

Try -A,--all-fqdns instead.
Comment 3 Jim Pirzyk 2012-07-03 13:13:24 UTC 
Can we get the documentation then fixed that -f will not return fqdn if there is a configuration error?

the man page and -h help both say that FQDN will be returned with -f.  The code can determine that -f will *not* return fqdn, because it is the same result as -s.

       -f, --fqdn, --long
              Display  the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). A FQDN consists


    -f, --fqdn, --long    long host name (FQDN)


This may be working as designed, but I am asking for the design bug to be resolved.
Comment 4 Jiri Popelka 2012-07-03 13:22:12 UTC 
The description of the '-f' option also says:
"See the warnings in section THE FQDN above, and avoid using this option; use hostname --all-fqdns instead."
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