dns problems with ssh,telnet,ftp on a local network

[Alfredo Ferrari <list pceet030 cern ch>]

Hi

I have two computers at home which talk over a twisted ethernet cable.
Till RH7.1, listing both machines inside their respective /etc/hosts
files was enough to make ssh,telnet,ftp work between them.

After upgrading to RH7.2 they do not longer work (I do not even reach the 
login prompt). With strace I can see that they try to reach the 
nameservers listed in /etc/resolv.conf which are unreachable most of the 
time (they are those of my ppp connection). Both /etc/hosts.conf and 
/etc/nsswitch.conf have the proper setting to use /etc/hosts in first p
lace, and ping and nfs mounts work flawlessly using the names as listed 
(and resolved) in /etc/hosts.
Furthermore strac'ing ssh shows that /etc/hosts is parsed, but apparently 
the resolver goes on trying also the nameservers listed in 
/etc/resolv.conf.

ssh,telnet,ftp'ing directly to the ip number works ok. It seems that these 
services are trying to make a further identification after parsing 
/etc/hosts which was not the case in the past. If I substitute 
/etc/resolv.conf with an empty one everything works ok, but of course 
I can no longer resolve names not in /etc/hosts when connected to the 
external world.

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

            Alfredo Ferrari
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