ssh can't resolve hostnames thru WINS

[Denis Vlasenko]

[Please CC me, I'm not on the list]

My box is on a mostly Windows-populated network.
Naturally, I set up Samba and added WINS as a name resolution option.

I found out that some programs now can use NetBIOS names, other can't.
openssh falls into latter category :-(

I found that openssh use this snippet to convert hostname to ip:

if((gaierr = getaddrinfo(host, strport, &hints, &aitop)) != 0)
    fatal("%s: %.100s: %s", __progname, host,
        gai_strerror(gaierr));

and it fails for me exactly in this if() when I say "ssh <wins_name>".
OTOH, ping uses code similar to

struct hostent *hp;
hp = gethostbyname(hostname);

and this works for WINS names.

My openssh version: openssh-3.0.2p1

Will try to patch ssh, although I'm know nothing about network programming.

Happy hacking,
--
vda