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Every error is a DNS error.

Newly installed RHEL5 machine in an existing network. Users opening firefox on the machine got an error "The bookmarks and history system will not be functional". The googlesphere suggested renaming places.sqlite and such, but that didn't help. Things began to clear up when I found errors on the NFS server that exports the home directory: "lockd: failed to monitor newmachine.companydomain". I checked the nfslock service, but it was running fine. Configuration files for NFS and autofs were identical to other machines that didn't show the problem. Then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit me: I had forgotten to create a reverse DNS entry for the new machines IP. Forward DNS was OK, but reverse wasn't. That caused the NFS lock error, and that caused the firefox error... The old saying is confirmed once more: every error is a DNS error.
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Anonymous said…
Keep spreading the word !
28/2/11 22:07
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