curl: (6) Could not resolve host: google.com; Name or service not known

Question

when I try to load a web page to terminal it gives curl: (6) Could not resolve host error.

I have internet in my PC and trying from my home internet connection. So as I there is no any proxy involve here.

[root@localhost kevin]# curl http://google.com curl: (6) Could not resolve host: google.com; Name or service not known 

clean all and tried again but no lucky.

But if I use IP instead of the domain name, it works fine.

[root@localhost kevin]# curl http://173.194.46.0

any clue please?

Answer 1

Issues were:

1. IPV6 enabled
2. Wrong DNS server

Here is how I fixed it:

IPV6 Disabling

• Open Terminal
• Type su and enter to log in as the super user
• Enter the root password
• Type cd /etc/modprobe.d/ to change directory to /etc/modprobe.d/
• Type vi disableipv6.conf to create a new file there
• Press Esc + i to insert data to file
• Type install ipv6 /bin/true on the file to avoid loading IPV6 related modules
• Type Esc + : and then wq for save and exit
• Type reboot to restart fedora
• After reboot open terminal and type lsmod | grep ipv6
• If no result, it means you properly disabled IPV6

Add Google DNS server

• Open Terminal
• Type su and enter to log in as the super user
• Enter the root password
• Type cat /etc/resolv.conf to check what DNS server your Fedora using. Mostly this will be your Modem IP address.
• Now we have to Find a powerful DNS server. Luckily there is a open DNS server maintain by Google.
• Go to this page and find out what are the "Google Public DNS IP addresses"
• Today those are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. But in future those may change.
• Type vi /etc/resolv.conf to edit the resolv.conf file
• Press Esc + i for insert data to file
• Comment all the things in the file by inserting # at the begin of the each line. Do not delete anything because can be useful in future.

• Type below two lines in the file

  nameserver 8.8.8.8
  nameserver 8.8.4.4

  -Type Esc + : and then wq for save and exit

• Now you are done and everything works fine (Not necessary to restart).
• But every time when you restart the computer your /etc/resolv.conf will be replaced by default. So I'll let you find a way to avoid that.

Here is my blog post about this: http://codeketchup.blogspot.sg/2014/07/how-to-fix-curl-6-could-not-resolve.html

Answer 2

Perhaps you have some very weird and restrictive SELinux rules in place?

If not, try strace -o /tmp/wtf -fF curl -v google.com and try to spot from /tmp/wtf output file what's going on.