On Oct 6, 2007, at 11:42 PM, Jason Johnson wrote:

> I would have to see your /etc/hosts.conf but you are pinging
> "Otter.local" which does look like an external (i.e. not localhost)
> address.  If you have more then one entry for Otter that points to
> different interfaces then this could happen.



[otter:~] johnmci% cat /etc/hosts
##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
[otter:~] johnmci% hostname
Otter.local
[otter:~] johnmci%


Well the computer name is set to otter, and os-x then cheerfully sets  
the hostname to Otter.local using
Bonjour, formerly Rendezvous, aka zeroconf

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.local

later when squeak asks for the hostname via gethostname we get back
Otter.local

On a linux system without zeroconf the interaction would be different  
and you would expect to get back an entry in the /etc/hosts

/* start a new network session */

sqInt sqNetworkInit(sqInt resolverSemaIndex)
{
   if (0 != thisNetSession)
     return 0;  /* already initialised */
   gethostname(localHostName, MAXHOSTNAMELEN);
   localHostAddress= nameToAddr(localHostName);
   thisNetSession= clock() + time(0);
   if (0 == thisNetSession)
     thisNetSession= 1;  /* 0 => uninitialised */
   resolverSema= resolverSemaIndex;
   return 0;
}




--
======================================================================== 
===
John M. McIntosh <johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com>
Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd.  http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
======================================================================== 
===