[SunHELP] solaris 8 problem ....

[Kurt Huhn]

> > I'm facing a strange problem:
> >
> > -one machine ultra10/NIS client/Solaris8
> > -when ethernet cable is disconnected the machine blocks/hangs very bad,
> > the ping program does not says the classical answer (no response from ...)
> > when I ping hosts by name, only when I ping hosts by IP.
> >
> > Even if I try to see processes on the system with ps, it is blocked.
> >
> > If have some knowledge of such a problem please let me know,

The problem is name resolution.  If you try to ping a system by IP, the
remote system is easily accessable with no further translation needed. 
If you try to ping a system by name (wheter using DNS or NIS for
resolution) the system needs to find the IP address of the remote system
before it can try to ping it.

Now, if you disconnect the ethernet cable and try to ping by name, your
system will be unable to find the IP address of the remote system.  It
may sit there for a very long time attempting to find the name of the
remote system.  If it can't find the name, it may sit there
indefinitely, waiting for the information it wants.  That's because,
while the OS may know the cable is unplugged, it doesn't pass that info
along to name resolution applications - so routines like gethostbyname
that are called by ping and other apps won't be able get the info they
want, and they may go into endless loops trying to find the name of the
remote system.

With the ethernet cable unplugged, you won't be able to ping anything
anyway.  Is there a deeper problem you're trying to solve?  I'm not sure
what the desired result is...
-- 
Kurt
kurt at k-huhn.com