[ubuntu users] Strange new Information--Question 2

James Michael Fultz croooow at gmail.com
Wed Sep 30 03:44:32 UTC 2009


* Ted Hilts <thilts at mcsnet.ca> [2009-09-29 20:58 -0600]:
>Using Ubuntu vs. 8.04 Hardy Heron upgraded from 7.10 CD's I recently ran 
>into a strange informational output that I guess started sometime in the 
>last 2 months on 8.04.  I've had 8.04 level operation for many months so 
>this informational output is new. What happens is that upon creating a 
>directory as in "sudo mkdir /media/sdc1/...." the message "Cannot 
>identify host" is generated and then and the directory is created.  A 
>typical directory creation would be: 
> 
>"sudo mkdir /media/sdc1/SB_EXPORTS/UBUNTU-EXPORTS-Aug-wk04-2009" 

Do you have mounting or exporting any network filesystems such as 
NFS or SMB/CIFS?  Aside from that, my hunch is that the message 
is more likely from sudo than from mkdir.

Is the exact message "Cannot identify host"?  Having tried the 
following Google search terms finds no results or results 
irrelevant to the topic:

"cannot identify host" sudo
"cannot identify host" mkdir"
"cannot identify host" ubuntu
"cannot identify host" linux
"cannot identify host"

It is also notable whether the message is seen at the console or 
within an X terminal (xterm, GNOME Terminal, etc.) since it could 
be a message from the kernel if it is on the console.  I would 
also suggest checking your system logs for the message.

Menu:
System > Administration > Log File Viewer

Access Find using Ctrl-F or via the View menu.  You'll have to 
select and search each relevant log file.

Alternatively at a shell prompt:

$ sudo find /var/log -type f -exec grep -i cannot.identify.host {} +

>This strange informational message recently started to occur 
>where before there was no message at all. 
> 
>I am wondering if there has been some syntax changes regarding "mkdir" 
>that require some reference to the host. 
> 
> 
>Any insight on this phenomena would be appreciated. 

The system mkdir command lacks any internal feature to act on 
remote hosts.  If in doubt, always check the local documentation.

The following commands returned no matches for the error message:

$ strings /bin/mkdir | grep -i cannot.identify.host
$ strings /usr/bin/sudo | grep -i cannot.identify.host
$ sudo grep -i cannot.identify.host /etc/sudoers

So it seems to be something outside of the commands involved 
directly.




More information about the ubuntu-users mailing list