Re: ticlts, ticots, ticotsord ...

From: Alek O. Komarnitsky (N-CSC) (alek@ast.lmco.com)
Date: 08/06/01 

Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 14:22:56 -0600 (MDT)
From: "Alek O. Komarnitsky (N-CSC)" <alek@ast.lmco.com>
Subject: Re: ticlts, ticots, ticotsord ...
To: Casper.***@sun.com, jpv@jpv.xs4all.nl
Message-id: <200108062022.OAA06295@goose.ast.lmco.com>

> From: Casper *** <Casper.***@sun.com>
> Subject: Re: ticlts, ticots, ticotsord ...
> To: Jan-Philip Velders <jpv@jpv.xs4all.nl>
> Cc: focus-sun@securityfocus.com
>
>
> >in the midst of a major renumbering operation (3 class C reshuffles,
> >and one class C being split into 4 different sized parts...) we
> >encountered some problems with a couple of Sun's (Ultra 5, Solaris
> >2.6) which failed to start rpcbind at bootup in single user mode.
> >
> >We traced the problems to the files:
> >/etc/net/ticlts/hosts
> >/etc/net/ticots/hosts
> >/etc/net/ticotsord/hosts
> >
> >Which are identical and contained hostnames from way back, on
> >installation, when hosts had entirely different names, on a
> >test-network...
>
> These files are required to contain "`uname -n` `uname -n`"; it's
> a requirement for loopback RPC to work correctly.
>
> >Now, we've read the manpages, and kinda deduced that these files are
> >used when only a loopback device is available (e.g. Single User
> >Mode)... But we're at a loss of when and how these device(s) come into
> >the picture and what they precisely do...
>
> No, they're always needed.
>
> Casper

Ummmmmmm ... I just checked ... and we have dozens of machines
with "old" host names in /etc/net/tic*/hosts ... and we have not
noticed any problems ... but maybe ignorance is bliss! ;-)

The vast majority of these are CAD/CAM applications, so we rarely
boot single user ... so maybe I'm not "tickling" the case where
these are actually used (?) ... although we do LOTS of RPC (ex: NIS).

Casper implies above that they are "really" used in normal operation ...
and Casper's advice is typically as good as gold in my book! ;-)

It sounds like I'm going to need to modify our "inst scripts"
to also tweek these files when the hostname is changed ...
but would be nice to know a little more about what these
are actually used for.

Thanx,
alek