Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 09:45:59 -0700 (PDT) From: David Wolfskill <dhw@whistle.com> To: FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG, jfrodo42@hotmail.com Subject: Re: "invalid hostname" on "last" Message-ID: <199809221645.JAA15029@pau-amma.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <19980922002118.3016.qmail@hotmail.com>
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>From: "Jane Frodo" <jfrodo42@hotmail.com>
>Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 17:21:17 PDT
> We have a user who always shows "invalid hostname" when
>we "last <username>". The problem is it looks ok on nslookup!
>One of the ip's you can look at is 209.63.23.76. This IP has
>no DNS errors I can _see_, but last _hates_ it!
> What is last trying to tell me about this IP?
I suspect the following (from "man logwtmp"):
DESCRIPTION
The function logwtmp() tries to append a new record to the wtmp(5) file,
using the provided arguments line, name, and host, and the current time.
If the length of the hostname string host is longer than what would fit
into the hostname field of the wtmp(5) file, it will first be attempted
to convert it into a numerical IP address using gethostbyname(3). Fail-
ing this, the hostname will be recorded as "invalid hostname".
david
--
David Wolfskill UNIX System Administrator
dhw@whistle.com voice: (650) 577-7158 pager: (650) 371-4621
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