Why my name resolution files are not considered anymore ??

["Robert J. Alexander" <rja@raleigh.ibm.com>]

I know I must be doing something horribly stupid, but pleeeease help me
(and feel free to insult me ;->) ... here attached is the problem I
described offline ...

-- 
Robert J. Alexander <rja@raleigh.ibm.com>
AIX Certified System Administrator - Debian Linux addict - Win.\* victim
Via Sciangai, 53 - 00144 Rome, Italy

I am going crazy on a name resolution problem.
After I fixed sendmail I could not resolve ANYTHING anymore.

Dunno exactly what I goofed ...

I was running a system without bind and resolved the loopback and a few host names with the /etc/host file.

Suddendly resolution was broken totally !!! As an attempt I installed bind to resolve at least the local address.

I am now  running bind version: 1:8.1.2-2 in a forwarders only mode.

I am not connected to the network where my forwarder is (9.87.2.151) as
my portable is at home (only loopback).

I can resolv localhost and 127.0.0.1 with the following behaviour:

PWD=/home/bob
bob@deb760xl > host localhost
localhost               A       127.0.0.1

PWD=/home/bob
bob@deb760xl > host 127.0.0.1
Name: localhost
Address: 127.0.0.1
Aliases: deb760xl


PWD=/home/bob
bob@deb760xl > host deb760xl
Nameserver not responding
deb760xl A record not found, try again

same behaviour without a resolv.conf or with one containing 127.0.0.1
same behaviour as I try to resolve pan (even if fully qualified)

I have a /etc/hosts file with the following (edited) content:

bob@deb760xl > cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1       localhost deb760xl
9.87.2.151      pan     pan.ncrome.romesc.ibm.com

bob@deb760xl > cat /etc/nsswitch.conf
passwd:         compat
group:          compat
shadow:         compat

hosts:          files dns
networks:       files

protocols:      db files
services:       db files
ethers:         db files
rpc:            db files

netgroup:       db files

bob@deb760xl > cat /etc/host.conf
order hosts,bind
multi on

I even tried changing the nsswitch and host.conf files omitting bind/dns altogether ... same thing.

My hostname is now non qualified but before I event tried giving it an hostname+domain to no avail.

Of course once I connect to my network all resolution, forward and straight is performed flawlessly by my 9.87.2.151 host ...

Any clues ??????????

Thank you very much in advance. Bob Alexander
PS system is a Debian slink