Feature changed by: Carlos Robinson (robin_listas) Feature #308824, revision 24 Title: Drop appending 127.0.0.2 line to /etc/hosts (incl. related configuration options) openSUSE Distribution: New Priority Requester: Mandatory Requested by: Katarina Machalkova (kmachalkova) Requested by: Ludwig Nussel (lnussel) Product Manager: Federico Lucifredi (flucifredi) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: For years, SUSE-based products have been appending '127.0.0.2 host. domain host' to /etc/hosts as a convenience for applications which want to resolve the hostname and which thus become irresponsive without active network [1] Localhost IP associated with FQDN however causes various network services (samba, SLP, LDAP, ntp, ... ) to behave oddly [2]. An option in product-wide control files has been introduced so as not to append 127.0.0.2 on server-oriented products (SLES) - FaTE#303875, while keeping user the possibility to override the default in GUI and AutoYaST profile. Nevertheless, even reasonably set default doesn't prevent misconfigurations and user complaints [3] The suggestion is therefore to drop 127.0.0.2 modification of /etc/hosts altogether and drop GUI/control options associated with configuration thereof. These include: * GUI option in YaST installer * XML profile elements in AutoYaST * Variable in product-wide control file (control.xml) * Possibly also sysconfig variable Appending 127.0.0.2 line has always been sort of workaround for flawed (mostly) desktop applications and DNS servers, so rather than providing workaround with plethora of side effects, it'd more reasonable to have affected apps fixed. Bugs have been filed against some of them and fixed already. References: [1] Apps become slow when offline bugs https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=304632 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=383336 [2] Network services going insane with localhost IP associated with FQDN https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=207392 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=355608 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=570108 [3] Even reasonably set default doesn't help https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=510228 [4] Related discussion on topic on research@suse.de http://fourier.suse.de/mlarch/SuSE/research/2010/research.2010.01 /msg00044.html Discussion: #1: H. Hansen (cyberbeat) (2010-03-07 23:27:08) I also often had trouble with java rmi because of this. #9: Marius Tomaschewski (mtomaschewski) (2011-05-20 22:52:13) Changed WRITE_HOSTNAME_TO_HOSTS to "no" (thanks for the patch Ludwig) in http://gitorious.org/opensuse/sysconfig/commit/9beeb884d295eb101175b11591a54... #10: Marius Tomaschewski (mtomaschewski) (2011-05-20 22:57:13) Removed also the corresponding 127.0.0.2 address from ifcfg-lo: http://gitorious.org/opensuse/sysconfig/commit/ffc50234f05b556c0050f9dcd3ce5... #11: Carlos Robinson (robin_listas) (2013-06-10 14:58:36) Why has this been rejected? 11.3 may be done, but 12.3 is not and has this problem #12: Carlos Robinson (robin_listas) (2013-06-12 19:41:45) Some people say that it is postfix fault. This is the answer from the postfix people: +++···································· Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:36:55 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: Postfix users <postfix- users@postfix.org> From: wietse@... (Wietse Venema) To: Postfix users <postfix-users@postfix.org> Carlos E. R.: > Apararently, my previous reply has been lost. I resend. > > On 2013-06-12 14:40, Wietse Venema wrote: > > Carlos E. R.: > > > > > Does the machine have a network interface with IP address 127.0.0.2? > > Dunno. I guess not, because it is not listed in ifconfig output. Then, 127.0.0.2 should not be specified in inet_interfaces. Wietse ····································++- Thus, they reject this being a postfix problem. #13: Carlos Robinson (robin_listas) (2013-06-12 19:52:59) I suggest that YaST should not add that entry to the hosts file; as this is an optional tick box, if marked it should warn the admin that marking it may break some software (and conversely, that not marking it breaks some other, older, software (sendmail, it seems)). #14: Carlos Robinson (robin_listas) (2013-06-13 22:17:37) (reply to #13) A good explanation of what happens with postix (not mine): <https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=824141> A link to the current bugzilla related to this issue: <https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=824141> + #15: Carlos Robinson (robin_listas) (2013-06-18 14:51:31) (reply to + #14) + The links got mangled. Here they are again: + http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2013-06/msg00550.html + (http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2013-06/msg00550.html) https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=824141 -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/308824