InetAddress.getLocalHost() is supposed to return the ip address of the local host. But on my machine (Debian Linux, Blackdown 1.3, using DHCP) it returns 127.0.0.1. This makes sense, sort of, because 127.0.0.1 is a valid address for this machine. but it is useless. Here is the interesting thing. my /etc/hosts looks like this: 127.0.0.1 aganthapus localhost but if I change it to this: 127.0.0.1 localhost then it works correctly! "aganthapus" is the machine name, and I guess debian put it in there. I think this makes sense because getLocalHost() does this: localHost = getAllByName(localHost.hostName)[0]; so it finds the first entry that matches "aganthapus", which is 127.0.0.1. So my question is: is it wrong for the localhost entry in /etc/hosts to contain the machine name? If not, getLocalHost() is broken. Paul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]