I am not sure if hte ping utility exists in mac but you should do an equivalent to this 1) ping ab-mac This will conver the name ab-mac to an ip if it doesn't happens then you can use the ip from ab-mac 2) You must be sure the tns services is installed on that host, because it seems it doesn't exists. Tellme what you get from the ping, and be sure there is a tnslistener services on that host. ( I didn't know there were Oracle product for mac), Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=ab-mac)(PORT=1521))) TNS-12541: TNS:no listener TNS-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error TNS-00511: No listener MacOS X Server Error: 61: Connection refused Juan Carlos Reyes Pacheco OCP Database 9.2 Standard Edition ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------