exachk IPv6 localhost ping test fails when it shouldn't

Asset ID:	1-72-2279622.1
Update Date:	2017-08-24
Keywords:

Solution Type Problem Resolution Sure

Solution 2279622.1 : exachk IPv6 localhost ping test fails when it shouldn't

Applies to:

Exadata X6-2 Hardware - Version All Versions to All Versions [Release All Releases]
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms

An exachk run reports:

InfiniBand Switch
Check Id Status Type Message Status On
29E070F2FAA7F9F5E0530A98EB0AC4D5 FAIL Switch Check The "localhost" alias should be pingable All InfiniBand Switches

Changes

Cause

The exachk 12.2.0.1.2_20161215 (and perhaps earlier) version uses a hard-coded IPv6 localhost hostname of ip6-localhost.

However the actual /etc/hosts entry for IPv6 localhost is more likely to be:

::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6

Therefore, the ping to ip6-localhost fails, while IPv6 localhost pings would actually work - if using the ::1 address or the localhost6 name.

This is bug 25660993 - "VERIFY THE "LOCALHOST" ALIAS IS PINGABLE" FAILS - HARDCODED NAME ISSUE.

Solution

Verify that the "ping localhost6" actually works, and if so, either ignore the incorrect exachk failure, or upgrade exachk to v12.2.0.1.3, which addresses bug 25660993.

The fix for this is to utilize the third field of the /etc/hosts ::1 localhost line for the ping command - which would be localhost6 above.

References

<NOTE:888828.1> - Exadata Database Machine and Exadata Storage Server Supported Versions
<BUG:25660993> - "VERIFY THE "LOCALHOST" ALIAS IS PINGABLE" FAILS - HARDCODED NAME ISSUE

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