gethostbyname() when host not found

[DaveKimble]

I look after 4 websites, 2 of which are hosted on different remote machines, 2 on a server on my LAN, and 2 mirrors also on the local server. I have been adjusting the name server setting, and have written a PHP script that uses the function gethostbyname() so that I can see when the propagation of the changes has occurred on the remote servers.

The PHP manual says when a hostname is not found, the function returns the input parameter, (not FALSE). The script runs correctly on the remote servers, but on the local server it is returning the IP of OpenDNS. It is a trivial problem, but I want to get to the bottom of it.

Code: Select all

function gethostip($host)
{   $hostip = gethostbyname($host);
   if ($hostip == $host) { $hostip = "no record"; }
   echo ("<TR><TD>".$host."</TD><TD>".$hostip."</TD></TR>");
}

[johnj]

1).What does gethostbyname("localhost") return in your case?
2).In your code, please print $host on local server. what does it display?