Re: apt-get failing

On Oct 31, 6:10 pm, Andrew Sackville-West <and...@farwestbilliards.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 10:05:32AM -0700, justsimplequestions wrote:
> > On Oct 31, 4:00 pm, Andrew Sackville-West
> > <and...@farwestbilliards.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 03:17:24AM -0700, justsimplequestions wrote:
> > > > Hello,
>
> > > > I am trying to install some new software as well as updating my
> > > > packages but apt-get install and apt-get update both fail. apt-get
> > > > update fails with:
>
> > > > Errhttp://security.debian.orgetch/updatesRelease.gpg
> > > > Temporary failure resolving âsecurity.debian.orgâ
> ...apt errors
>
> > > > My /apt/sources.list file is as follows:
>
> > > > debhttp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/etchmain
> > > > deb-srchttp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/etchmain
> > > > debhttp://security.debian.org/etch/updatesmain
> > > > deb-srchttp://security.debian.org/etch/updatesmain
> > > > debhttp://download.webmin.com/download/repositorysargecontrib
> > > > debhttp://packages.dotdeb.orgstableall
> > > > deb-srchttp://packages.dotdeb.orgstableall
>
> > > > I am able to ping external websites using both ip and name, The
>
> > > great that you can ping external websites, but can you ping the debian
> > > servers? those are the ones that count here ;) Also there are some
> > > funky characters and missing characters in your apt output above. Is
> > > that transcription error? or something else?
>
> > Thanks very much for replying. Could not ping the debian servers! I've
> > entered the ip address for the debian sites in the hosts an voila!
> > However, those are funky characters above... they worried me as well
> > and am not sure how and why they appear like that.
>
> so you've got a name resolution problem. I'm betting that your
> sources.list is not properly encoded somehow. try creating a new one
> from scratch and see what happens. no copy and paste! retype it in a
> basic text editor like vim, or in a small operating system like emacs.
>
> The funky characters are the clue I'm looking at there...
>
> A
>
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> 1KDownload

You're absolutely right - its definitely a DNS issue. Without even retyping the sources.list manually, it looks like I can not not ping by name either. I know in my original post I said I could ping external sites but it seems I was incorrect. I can not ping any sites using name - ip address is fine however (100% sure!). This is further proved by the fact that if I add the ip address associated with the name of the website in the hosts file, as I have done for the debian sites, all works fine. I have no dns server running on and not sure what I can do to rectify? Your help is greatly appreciated. Received on Thu Nov 1 09:16:09 2007