Doing a python socket tutorial, entire codebase is as follows import socket as so s = so.socket() host = so.gethostname() port = 12345 s.bind((host, port)) s.listen(5) while True: c, addr = s.accept() print 'Got connection from', addr c.send('Thank you for connecting') c.close() and error message: Traceback (most recent call last): File "server.py", line 13, in <module> s.bind((host, port)) File "/Users/solid*name*/anaconda/lib/python2.7/socket.py", line 224, in meth return getattr(self._sock,name)(*args) socket.gaierror: [Errno 8] nodename nor servname provided, or not known Printing hostname gives me super*name* Which is, in fact, my computer's hostname.