[linux] ssh: Could not resolve hostname [hostname]: nodename nor servname provided, or not known

I am trying to set up a VPN with a Raspberry Pi, and the first step is gaining the ability to ssh into the device from outside my local network. For whatever reason, this is proving to be impossible and I haven't the slightest clue why. When I try to ssh into my server with user@hostname, I get the error:

ssh: Could not resolve hostname [hostname]: nodename nor servname provided, or not known 

However, I can log into the server with,

ssh user@[local IP]

The server is a Raspberry Pi Model B running the latest distribution of Raspbian and the machine I am trying to connect to it with is a Macbook Pro running Mavericks. ssh was enabled on the Raspberry Pi when I set up Raspbian.

I have perused Stack Overflow for hours trying to see if anyone else had this problem and I have not found anything. Every ssh tutorial I find says that I should just be able to set it up on the remote machine and log in from anywhere using a hostname, and I have never had success with that.

If you're on Mac, restarting the DNS responder fixed the issue for me.

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

I needed to connect to remote Amazon server

ssh -i ~/.ssh/test.pem -fN -L 5555:localhost:5678 [email protected]

I was getting the following error.

ssh: Could not resolve hostname <hostname.com>: nodename nor servname provided, or not known

Solution For Mac OSX

Pinging the host resolved the issue. I am using Mac OSX Seirra.

ping hostname.com

Now problem resolved. Able to connect to the server.

Note: I tried this solution also. But it didn't work out. Then ping resolved the issue.

If your command is:

$ ssh -p 1122  path/to/pemfile user@[hostip/hostname]

You will also face the same error

ssh: Could not resolve hostname [hostname]: nodename nor servname provided, or not known

when you miss the option -i /path/to/pemfile of ssh

So Command should be:

$ ssh -p 1122 -i path/to/pemfile user@[hostip/hostname]

For me, the problem was a typo on my ~/.ssh/config file. I had:

Host host1:
  HostName 10.10.1.1
  User jlyonsmith

The problem was the : after the host1 - it should not be there. ssh gives no warnings for typos in the ~/.ssh/config file. When it can't find host1 it looks for the machine locally, can't find it and prints the cryptic error message.

I got this error by using a .yml inventory file in ansible that was not properly formatted. For multiple hosts in a group, each hostname needs to end in a hard colon ":". Otherwise ansible runs the host names together and produces this ssh error.

If you need access to your VPN from anywhere in the world you need to register a domain name and have it point to the public ip address of your VPN/network gateway. You could also use a Dynamic DNS service to connect a hostname to your public ip.

If you only need to ssh from your Mac to your Raspberry inside your local network, do this: On your Mac, edit /etc/hosts. Assuming the Raspberry has hostname "berry" and ip "172.16.0.100", add one line:

# ip           hostname
172.16.0.100   berry

Now: ssh user@berry should work.

I had the same problem: The address shown in Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Login didn't work and I got a '... nodename nor servname provided, or not known'. However, when I manually edited the settings (in Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Login -> edit) and enabled "Use dynamic global hostname", it suddenly worked.

I have the exact same configuration. This answer pertains specifically to connecting to a raspberry pi from inside the local network (not outside). I have A raspberry pi ssh server, and a macbook pro, both connected to a a router. On a test router, my mac connects perfectly when I use ssh danran@mypiserver, however, when I use ssh danran@mypiserver on my main router, i get the error

ssh: Could not resolve hostname [hostname]: nodename nor servname provided, or not known

Just as you have gotten. It seems, the solution for me at least, was to add a .local extension to the hostname when connecting from my mac via ssh.

So, to solve this, i used the command ssh [email protected] (remember to replace the "danran" with your username and the "mypiserver" with your hostname) instead of using ssh danran@mypiserver.

To anyone reading this, try adding a .local as the suffix to your hostname you are trying to connect to. That should solve the issue on a local network.

It seems that some apps won't read symlinked /etc/hosts (on macOS at least), you need to hardlink it.

ln /path/to/hosts_file /etc/hosts

I had the same issue connecting to a remote machine. but I managed to login as below:

ssh -p 22 myName@hostname

or:

ssh -l myName -p 22 hostname

In my case I was trying ssh like this

ssh [email protected]:22 

when the correct format is:

ssh [email protected] -p 22 

I had the same problem after testing Visual Studio Code with remote-ssh plugin. During the setup of the remote host the software did ask me where to store the config-file. I thought a good place is the '.ssh-folder' (Linux-system) as it was a ssh-remote configuration. It turned out to be a bad idea. The next day, after a new start of the computer I couldn't logon via ssh on the remote server. The error message was 'Could not resolve hostname:....... Name or service not known'. What happen was that the uninstall from VSC did not delete this config-file and of course it was than disturbing the usual process. An 'rm' later the problem was solved (I did delete this config-file).

Try this, considering your allowed ports. Store your .pem file in your Documents folder for instance.

To gain access to it now all you have to do is cd [directory], which moves you to the directory of the allotted file. You can first type ls, to list the directory contents you are currently in:

ls
cd /Documents
chmod 400 mycertificate.pem
ssh -i "mycertificate.pem" [email protected] -p 80

This was happening to me when trying to access Github. The problem is that I was in the habit of doing:

git remote add <xyz> ssh:\\[email protected]......

But, if you are having this error from the question, removing ssh:\\ may resolve the issue. It solved it for me!

Note that you will have to do a git remote remove <xyz> and re-add the remote url without ssh:\\.

I had the same issue, which I was able to resolve by adding a .local to the host name, ala ssh [email protected]