Local address lookup

[Jan Willem Stumpel <jstumpel@planet.nl>]

This is a follow-up to the thread "Local Net - delays in telnet 
login" of last month.

I have a local (home) network containing machines jupiter and 
saturn. Saturn has a connection to the Internet (ADSL) which may 
or may not be functioning. Both machines are running Woody.

Symptom: if saturn's Internet connection is down, from jupiter, 
"telnet saturn" succeeds, but only after a long delay. If the 
connection is up, "telnet saturn" succeeds immediately. Saturn has 
IP address 192.168.2.2. If I use the numerical address (telnet 
192.168.2.2) it *always* succeeds immediately, no matter if there 
is an Internet connection or not.

This suggests a DNS type problem. Everywhere (on jupiter and 
saturn) /etc/host.conf has "order hosts,bind" (I also tried "order 
hosts bind", space instead of comma, as stated by an old version 
of the *Linux Network Administrator's Guide*).

/etc/hosts on both machines has

   127.0.0.1       localhost
   192.168.2.2     saturn.my.home   saturn
   192.168.2.1     jupiter.my.home  jupiter

/etc/resolv/conf on jupiter has

   cache . root.cache
   nameserver aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
   nameserver aaa.bbb.ccc.eee

These are the ISP's name servers; of course when there is no 
Internet connection they do not work, but I assume that the 
/etc/hosts file will get priority anyway.

I have installed the Debian package *host* so I can type from jupiter

   host saturn

I get the answer

   saturn does not exist, try again

But if I type

   host 192.168.2.2

I get (at once)

   Name: saturn.my.home
   Address: 192.168.2.2
   Aliases: saturn

So it seems the identification "saturn --> 192.168.2.2" cannot be 
made locally (i.e. on jupiter) although the identification 
"192.168.2.2 --> saturn" can. What is wrong with my "address 
lookup set-up"?

regards, Jan