A common error when pinging some websites, say google.com, is "unknown hosts". Several potential misconfigurations, as listed below, might partially account for this error.
1. Wrong routing configuration:
# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
10.0.3.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth2
link-local * 255.255.0.0 U 1004 0 0 eth2
default wiles 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth2
Make sure the gateway is correctly configured for the default destination
2. Wrong DNS configuration:
# nslookup google.com
# dig google.com
# cat /etc/resolv.conf
3. Wrong firewall configuration:
# cat /etc/sysconfig/iptables
