#4 Getting gethostbyname: unknown error

[Anonymous]

I downloaded and installed PSM using psm-setup-0.30.115.0.exe.

I am getting a PuTTy error: "unable to open connection to <my server name>" gethostbyname: unknown error

Can you help?

thanks
Boris

[David R]

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Hi,
Apologies for the slow reply - I have been on Easter break!

This sounds like a problem with your PuTTY session , rather than with PSM itself. Does this session work outside of PSM ( ie. just from PuTTY )?

Or do you have a personal firewall ( Zone Alarm etc ) that has blocked connections from programs launched by PSM? If so ( temporarily ) disable it and try again.

If none of that helps - could you attach a screenshot of the error?

Many thanks
David

[Nobody/Anonymous]

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Thanks David for your response.

I am able to open PuTTY sessions outside of the Session Manager (using putty.exe) just fine. I installed the Session Manager in hopes for it to help me manage my hundreds of servers I have to connect to.

I don't have any program blocking software installed.

I don't see the attachment button here, but the error box I get is a generic error box with a whie "x" in a red circle, a message stating:

Window header: PuTTY Error
Window body: Unable to open connection to "<my server name>" gethostbyname: unknown error

and an OK button.

thanks
Boris

[David R]

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Hi Boris

Thanks for the update. That looks like a PuTTY error ( try typing in a hostname that doesn't exist into PuTTY and you should see a similar error ), although I can't find any way of reproducing the "gethostbyname: unknown error" version of the error message.

Can you confirm what version of PuTTY you are using, and what version of Windows you have? Also does this occur for every session or only particular sessions? Also which language are you using for Windows?

As for attachments - if you register for sf.net and login , you can upload attachments.

I'm struggling to think what could cause this. All PSM does is launch a separate PuTTY process, using the command line option -load and the session name
EG:

"C:\Program Files\PuTTY\putty.exe" -load "My Session Name"

Could you check the path to putty in the Options box and try running the command above ( using the problem session name ) in a DOS box and let me know if you get the same result?

Hope this helps

Regards
David

[Nobody/Anonymous]

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Hello David.

Thanks for your continued attention.

When I click on the "About" button, my Putty version shows as "Development Snapshot 2005-03-12:r5497".

Also, how do I check my Windows' language? Sorry for asking, I am more of a Unix/Oracle guy.

thanks
Boris

[David R]

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Ahh - that sounds well out of date. I have only tested from v0.58 up and would recommend v0.60

Could you go and get the latest version ( v0.60 ) from
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html
and install that and retest?

As for the windows language - I just wanted to check that you had an English language version , rather than French / Spanish / German etc... ?

Kind Regards
David

[David R]

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Setting to pending due to inactivity

[SourceForge Robot]

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This Tracker item was closed automatically by the system. It was
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the administrator of this Tracker).

[Nobody/Anonymous]

Here is the answer from http://andrewbevitt.com/2010/02/04/putty-gethostbyname-unknown-error/

It is a Windows7 problem. Short answer is to put the putty.exe on your c drive and not the desktop.

"I had an issue using PuTTY (free Windows SSH client) this afternoon when trying to login to a work server. The error message seemed very odd:

Unable to open connection to andrewbevitt.com
gethostbyname: unknown error

OR BY IP ADDRESS

Unable to open connection to 220.233.157.156
Network error: Invalid argument

Turns out that it’s a Windows 7 feature. I had the PuTTY executable sitting on my Desktop as part of my domain account so apparently something executed out of $HOMEDIR\* gets limited.

Solution: Copy the executable to a local disk partition."

[Nobody/Anonymous]

The workaround proposed on 2011-11-03 does not work for me.
I downloaded the last putty.exe yesterday and moved it to C:\Putty\putty.exe (I don't have the permissions to put it directly under C:).
Double-clicking on the executable still brings the above mentioned error.