No route to host 🐧 Linux

connect: No route to host (EHOSTUNREACH)

The destination host isn’t reachable — it’s down, on another subnet without routing, or a firewall rejects with “host unreachable”.

Seen on: Linux

Meaning

Unlike “network unreachable”, the network exists but the host doesn’t answer ARP, or a firewall (firewalld default REJECT) sends ICMP host-prohibited. Very common with firewalld blocking a port on RHEL/CentOS.

Common causes

  • firewalld/iptables REJECT rule on the target (icmp-host-prohibited)
  • Target machine down or wrong IP
  • Different VLAN/subnet without a route
  • Cloud security group/NACL

⚡ Quick fix

  1. Open the port on the target: firewall-cmd --add-port
  2. Verify the IP and that the host is up
  3. Check routing between subnets

Detailed fix by platform

RHEL

  1. bash
    sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=8080/tcp
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Linux

  1. bash
    nc -vz 10.0.0.5 8080
ip route get 10.0.0.5

How to diagnose

  1. Host — Up and correct IP?
  2. Firewall — firewall-cmd --list-all on the target
  3. Route — ip route get

🔧 Still not fixed?

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