here's the symptom ndb/dnsquery 9hal.ath.cx 9hal.ath.cx ip 9.0.0.0
the problem is that devip.c:/^lookuphost tries to avoid calling gethostbyname when given an ip address by testing to see if the return value of v4parseip is nozero. unfortunately, v4parseip parses "9hal.ath.cx" as the ip address 9.0.0.0. here is one tacky solution: ; diff -c devip.c /tmp devip.c:811,817 - /tmp/devip.c:811,816 v4parseip(to, s); ip = nhgetl(to); if(ip != 0) - if(strspn(s, "0123456789.") == strlen(s)) return 0; if((s = hostlookup(s)) == nil) return -1; on a related note, would it be worth while to put effort into supporting ptr queries, ip6 &c using the host's lookup facilities or should that effort be directed into adding bits to enable ndb/dns to run? i guess this gets to a more philosophical question on how 9vx networking relates to the host. personally, i feel it would be more useful to be able to use plan 9's native network stack. but i'm biased. i want to send aoe/cec/il packets. - erik