I've been trying to install and configure leafnode. The version packaged with Potato ( the distro I'm using ) has given me a problem according to the maintainer. Following his advice, I've compiled the latest version from source and after much playing around with the FQDN ( something I've never really understood ) have it working. Initially, I got an unclear error message following attempts to get newsgroups descriptions from the news server at my ISP - I've now found the descriptions were put into the correct folder and the errror message meant these could not be read ( presumably to offer me the chance to subscribe ). I'm going to install and use slrn, but find something must be wrong with my /etc/hosts file.
The only line I have now in the file is:- 127.0.0.1 <machine name>.clara.co.uk <machine name> <machine name> is the entry in /etc/hostname and command #hostname confirms this whilst commands #hostname and #dnsdomainname -d both give the clara.co.uk bit. #ifconfig appears to show the loopback is OK. Trying to ping localhost now says 'unknown host host' and pinging localhost says 'unknown host localhost' and this was not the case before I changed /etc/hosts. I've never understood how loopback works and have assumed 127.0.0.1 was how all machines refer to themselves. Can someone please give me a simple 'idiots guide' and if possible say how I can get slrn to see the newsgroups descriptions in /var/spool/news/leaf.node/groupinfo so that I can subscribe to those I wish to read ( these will I presume be put into /news.clara.co.uk so that fetchnews or slrn can get the messages ). After a couple of years being mystified by FQDN's I thought at long last I did understood - now I just don't know. Regards, John -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]