Ubuntu

start up error - can't find host name on internet

Asked by bart1452

Start up error in Xubuntu:

"Could not look up internet address for 700Z (host name).
This will prevent Xfce from operating correctly.
It may be possible to correct the problem by adding 700Z to the file /etc/hosts on your system."

Hosts file contents:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 700Z.MSHOME

# The following lines are desirable for the IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00:: ip6-mcastprefix
ff01:: ip6-allnodes
ff02:: ip6-allrouters
ff02:: ip6-allhosts

c-t, alt F1 command line window contents:

Starting up...
Loading, please wait...
Kinit: name_to_dev_t/(/dev/disk/by-uuid/5eb49a12-30b3-40a7-bc70affce165e7be)=S dab(8,6)
Kinit: Trying to resume from /dev/disk/by-uuid/5eb49a12-30b3-40a7-bc70affce165e7be
Kinit: no resume image, doing normal boot

Ubuntu 8.04.1 700Z tty1

700Z login:

I compared the hosts file on this system (700Z) with another system running Xubuntu that starts without the error and the hosts files are identical except for the hostname.

I do not comprehend the meaning of the error when the hosts file seems to be properly configured. There seems to be some fault in the the reading of the hosts file during startup.

Question information

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Solved by:
Thomas Kluyver
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This question was reopened

Revision history for this message
Drew Feragen (drewferagen) said : 		#1

Change the first line your /etc/hosts files to this:

127.0.0.1 localhost 700Z

You can leave everything else alone. Save and reboot. That should fix it.

I had this error once, and fixed it like this. I am not sure why the error will randomly surface.

Revision history for this message
bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#2

Thank you, Drew.

That did work. I tried to change it from the GUI and couldn't figure out how to get the permissions, but in the terminal window using sudo nano /etc/hosts opened it up and I changed the line as you described. Now it boots up without the error report.

Thanks again.
David Bartholomew

Revision history for this message
bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#3

Error has reappeared. Current hosts file contents:

127.0.0.1 localhost 700Z.MSHOME
127.0.1.1 700Z.MSHOME

# The following lines are desirable for the IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00:: ip6-mcastprefix
ff01:: ip6-allnodes
ff02:: ip6-allrouters
ff02:: ip6-allhosts

It looks like some sort of bug.

Revision history for this message
marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#4

Please copy and paste here the result of terminal command:

hostname

Thank you

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bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#5

For some reason the copy and paste commands shift+control+c and shift+control+v don't seem to work to bring the text over to this window. The contents of the terminal window are:

david@700Z:~$ hostname
700Z
david@700Z:~$

-bart1452

--- On Fri, 9/26/08, marcobra <email address hidden> wrote:
From: marcobra <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [Question #45462]: start up error - can't find host name on internet
To: <email address hidden>
Date: Friday, September 26, 2008, 9:47 PM

Your question #45462 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/45462

marcobra posted a new comment:
Please copy and paste here the result of terminal command:

hostname

Thank you

--
You received this question notification because you are a direct
subscriber of the question.

Revision history for this message
marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#6

@ bart1452, Please don't reply via mail to launchpad mail notification but visit directly your question Launchpad site link.
Replying via mail to launchpad message might expose your email address to the net and you will give a lot of
spam.

Hope this helps

Revision history for this message
bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#7

Marcobra,

Thank you for the warning about replying through the email.

As for the error report, the related files seem to have all the information the system would need to boot up normally to my knowlege. I am also unable to get the system to connect to the wireless printer. I don't know if that is related to the error report. I need to start a separate about that.

Dave

Revision history for this message
bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#8

Marcobra,

Thank you for the warning about replying through the email.

As for the error report, the related files seem to have all the information the system would need to boot up normally to my knowlege. I am also unable to get the system to connect to the wireless printer. I don't know if that is related to the error report. I need to start a separate question about that.

Dave

Revision history for this message
bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#9

As an added report, every time I try to use a sudo command I get an error "Unable to resolve host 700Z".

Revision history for this message
marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#10

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+faq/93

Revision history for this message
bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#11

Marcobra,

I do have sudo power, though on rare occasion it withholds it. A reboot seems to restore it. I checked my hosts file and it still has the configuration I gave in my post on 9-25-08:

127.0.0.1 localhost 700Z.MSHOME
127.0.1.1 700Z.MSHOME

# The following lines are desirable for the IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00:: ip6-mcastprefix
ff01:: ip6-allnodes
ff02:: ip6-allrouters

I'm wondering if there is some sort of conflict within the computer. Maybe the system doesn't like the hardware? For a long time the Update Manager would say last updated 10 days ago, last updated 12 days ago... right after fresh updates were made. That finally appears to have corrected itself.

Revision history for this message
bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#12

I've been told that the problem stems from a bug in the loopback, what ever that is. I did an ifconfig lo and the terminal showed:

david@700Z:~$ sudo ifconfig lo
sudo: unable to resolve host 700Z
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:274 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:274 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:13768 (13.4 KB) TX bytes:13768 (13.4 KB)

david@700Z:~$

I don't know what it means. Does anyone see anything wrong?

Revision history for this message
Best Thomas Kluyver (takluyver) said : 		#13

Something is automatically turning "700Z" in your /etc/hosts into "700Z.MSHOME". Given that "MSHOME" is a common workgroup name for Windows computers, my guess would be that this may be related to Samba file sharing, although I don't know what might be changing it or why.

It should work with the first two lines of /etc/hosts looking like this:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 700Z

Revision history for this message
bart1452 (davidbartholomew) said : 		#14

Thomas, I made the change and that stopped the error messages and denial of administrator privileges. I say that with this comment:
That was the original configuration of the /etc/hosts file when the error reports started. Someone said to put the host name on the end of the first line to stop the error messages and that worked for a few days before the error messages came back. I don't know how the ".MSHOME" got appended.

Hopefully the error messages won't come back.

Thank you, Thomas.
-Dave