> No, I can't ping the host because ping, like telnet and ftp, simply
> hangs when I try to run it.

How long did you wait?  If nameservice isn't working for any reason, it
will hang for a human-nontrivial time trying to do name lookup.  Many
programs have an option (-n in the case of ping) to suppress this
lookup....  (The "human-nontrivial time" is perhaps a minute or two.)

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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