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I have setup a new MacBook Pro retina, things were going well but now I cannot access localhost.

$ ping localhost
ping: cannot resolve localhost: Unknown host

My /etc/hosts file is fine, or at least untouched.

I have tried flushing the DNS cache, and dig localhost spits out

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> localhost
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 50562
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;localhost.         IN  A

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
.           1551    IN  SOA a.root-servers.net. nstld.verisign-grs.com. 2013030800 1800 900 604800 86400

;; Query time: 31 msec
;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)
;; WHEN: Fri Mar  8 14:53:09 2013
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 102

I am at a loss what to try next! I have even run OnyX to clean all cache etc...

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3
  • can you ping 127.0.0.1?
    – bispymusic
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 15:30
  • Yep that works fine
    – user44649
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 15:47
  • do you use firewalls like little snitch?
    – Eir Nym
    Commented Mar 9, 2013 at 22:40

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Maybe your host file got mangled. Open a terminal, and read your hosts file:

vim /private/etc/hosts

This should contain a line that maps localhost to 127.0.0.1:

127.0.0.1   localhost

It could be this file does not exist at all, or the line I gave above is not present. To be able to edit it you need to be superuser, i.e.:

sudo vim /private/etc/hosts

or you can use any other editor besides vim.

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  • It seems /private/etc/hosts just opens up /etc/hosts, which contains 127.0.0.1 localhost etc... as you would expect
    – user44649
    Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 19:33
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Searching man ...

  • hosts (/etc/hosts), I see that

The hosts file is read by mDNSResponder(8) and used to supply results for calls to getaddrinfo(3), getnameinfo(3), etc. in addition to results obtained from multicast and unicast DNS.

  • dig & host, only mention /etc/resolv.conf, and contain no mention of etc or hosts.

/etc/resolv.conf says it's not used for most DNS lookups on the system (system networking library calls), and suggests scutil --dns and to SEE ALSO dns-sd(1), scutil(8).

I'm stuck with the same weird issue that I can't get ICMP replies from localhost nor the IP on en0, the local Wi-Fi LAN interface.

Perhaps it's something in firewall settings. Or hopefully not, other system security permissions.

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