[Pythonmac-SIG] socket.gethostbyaddr(socket.gethostname())
Jack Jansen
jack@oratrix.nl
Wed, 16 Aug 2000 12:38:27 +0200
> Yo,
>
> I'm finding that the call socket.gethostbyaddr(socket.gethostname()) (called
> all over the place in smtplib for example) generates an error (host not
> found) when the machine it's executed on doesn't have a DNS IP address
> reverse mapping PTR record (this record allows fo the reverse mapping from
> an IP address to a host name).
Well, the relevant internet standards speficially say that you _must_ have a
PTR record for all machines. But, the fact that I get 3 messages a week from
people who can't access ftp.cwi.nl shows that a lot of ISPs indeed happily
ignore this:-(
The solution is to add the PTR (and A, of course) record for your own machine
to your hosts file.
And, on smtplib: again by the standard it should pass the official name (fqdn)
in the HELO command. It might be allowable, though, to pass [xx.xx.xx.xx] or
so (rfc821 is a long time ago, I don't remember).
--
Jack Jansen | ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
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