On Fri, 02 May 2008 14:19:28 +0800, David Shen wrote:

> I am connected to the internet, and is able to ping with IP address. I
> see in the /etc/resolv.conf file that the nameservers are listed
> correctly. Also, I am able to ping the machines by hostname in my
> domain, which means it is able to resolve the name. But when I try to
> ping a Internet website by its name, say ping google.com, the ping
> exited immediately, stating a unknown host. It looks like it never tried
> to resolve it.

Check /etc/nsswitch.conf. This is from Debian but you should have a
similar entry for hosts:

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4