Ok, when I bring up the loopback interface with 127.0.0.1 as the address it come up, and then I can run fetchmail with no smtp complaints even with "localhost" in the /etc/hosts file. Progress! But I still can't figure out why this interface won't come up automatically, why I have to bring it up with ifconfig manually. Is there a link in my system, or a package, or a driver, I could be missing, since I did have to reinstall recently? If I run ifconfig just with -a it does show the loopback interface even if it's down. Somebody asked about my /etc/network/ifstate file; it's empty. I do have a /etc/network/spoof-protect file, which isn't actually necessary for 2.2 and 2.4 kernels (I have currently a 2.2.18 and 2.4.13 kernel on my system; am now using mostly the 2.4.13). Here is the spoof-protect file for what it's worth. # default spoof protection configuration # # this is only necessary for pre-2.2 kernels. # (it can be determined automatically under 2.2.x)
LOCAL_IPS="127.0.0.1/8" LOCAL_IFACES="loopback eth0 ppp" I notice it lists all these as local; is that normal for this file?
