Modifying /etc/hosts Causing internet problems

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When I try to add aliases to /etc/hosts it causes connection problems with my internet. Whereby it is connected to my network and it still says it has internet access, but i am unable to view web pages (returns connection error page) or download etc, it does this every 10-15 minutes for 5 minutes. When I take the aliases out of the hosts file and restart apache, it is fine. I am running Ubuntu 12.10.

Here is my Hosts file.

127.0.0.1 localhost sitealias
127.0.1.1 ubuntu


# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

I want to know whats causing it, but I would also like to know how you would go about diagnosing the cause for future references.

Danzabar

Posted 2013-04-11T16:46:09.683

Reputation: 21

Please expand on "Problems". What exactly doesn't work? – daxlerod – 2013-04-11T17:49:06.133

Try to have your /etc/hosts file consistent with your /etc/hostname file. Otherwise you can experience network problems. – jap1968 – 2013-04-11T18:04:48.050

@Danzabar: Please link your Stack Overflow account in to Super User, and then edit your question, so we know that the edit is coming from you and not a random anonymous user. – Scott – 2013-04-12T18:47:04.220

@daxlerod: i have edited the question to expand on the problem; – Danzabar – 2013-04-13T08:16:20.157

Just to make sure, you are having trouble accessing OUTSIDE web pages, correct? You shouldn't need to restart apache, as it should have nothing to do with this problem if I understand you correctly. Please confirm – David Houde – 2013-04-13T10:35:20.950

@DavidHoude: that is correct, i can view websites i have on my apache. but taking the aliases out of /etc/hosts and then restarting apache stops the problem. its only when i have aliases that this is occuring. – Danzabar – 2013-04-14T08:42:02.100

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  • technically, /etc/host entries are not aliases, but lookups. 2) Do you run a web proxy? 3) can you use ping and other tools to connect? Say, does a ping www.google.com or a telnet www.google.com 80 do something? 4) what's that ubuntu address supposed to be? All of the 127/8 network is defined as loopback, it looks suspicious to me.
    • – Rich Homolka – 2013-04-15T02:36:34.043

    Do you control your DNS? Can you you not create aliases there? – jim mcnamara – 2013-04-15T02:36:41.573

    Answers

    0

    After some further investigation I have found out, that this problem is actually specific to Virgin customers with superhub. As documented here

    I fixed this issue by switching to "Modem only" mode.

    Danzabar

    Posted 2013-04-11T16:46:09.683

    Reputation: 21

    1

    Base on what is posted in question

    127.0.0.1 localhost sitealias
127.0.1.1 ubuntu

    I can foresee you will be having trouble access website sitealias (unless you run a local webserver hosting that particular site).

    On the other hand, you should have no trouble accessing other site. (I am assuming your dns setup is correct, as you don't have trouble without the sitealias in /etc/hosts.)

    The reason you have trouble accessing sitealias when it is presented in /etc/hosts is that

    127.0.0.1 localhost sitealias

    actually make sitealias point to IP address 127.0.0.1, which is your own machine.

    IP address 127.0.0.1 is a loopback address, which is always the local machine. You can read more about it in wikipedia page.

    If you are trying to use apache as proxy server, then you should not put sitealias in /etc/hosts, but configure firefox proxy settings accordingly.

    John Siu

    Posted 2013-04-11T16:46:09.683

    Reputation: 4 957

    Asked: 2013-04-11T16:46:09.683

    Viewed: 331 times

    Active: 2013-05-31T12:07:21.977