Why can't I start hesupd?

[Shawn Mamros]

One thing to keep in mind is that hesupd is only used for allowing
remote hosts to update the Hesiod database (so that users can change
their passwords, etc.).  The named daemon is the actual name server
for both Internet and Hesiod domain information.

In any event, hesupd is a little bit fussy about the way it wants the
bindmaster alias set up.  For starters, you should have /etc/svc.conf
set up so that the hosts entry is "hosts=local,bind" (note that local
comes first).  Next, in the /etc/hosts entry for your machine, you
need to make sure that the first hostname listed corresponds to
the output of /bin/hostname.  As an example, let's say your /etc/hosts
entry looks like this:

129.142.100.3	nbivax.nbi.dk nbivax bindmaster

If the output of /bin/hostname is "nbivax.nbi.dk", then hesupd shouldn't
be giving you that error message.  On the other hand, if /bin/hostname
returns "nbivax", then it fails (because it's doing a comparison between
the "h_name" field of the hostent struct returned by doing a
gethostbyname(3) on "bindmaster" with the hostname provided by
a gethostname(2) call).

Hope this helps...

-Shawn Mamros
mamros at irc.cbm.dec.com
Disclaimer #1: The above is based on my opinions/observations, so don't
blame my employer...
Disclaimer #2: I didn't write the code, so don't blame me...