[PLUG] Host Unknown Problem After Name Change

[Carlos Konstanski]

On 04/10/2011 09:23 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Apr 2011, Bill Thoen wrote:
> 
>> /etc/hosts:
>> # Do not remove the following line, or various programs
>> # that require network functionality will fail.
>> 127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost
>> ::1             localhost.localdomain6 localhost6
> 
> Bill,
> 
>    Professional SysAdmins will correct me if I'm wrong, but /etc/hosts,
> /etc/hosts.allow, /etc/hosts.deny, /etc/hosts.equiv, and /etc/host.conf
> identify the hosts on your local nectwork so they can directly communicate
> with one another. In /etc/host.conf here I have:
> 
> [root at salmo ~]# less /etc/host.conf
> order hosts, bind
> multi on
> 
> So the system looks in the hosts file first.
> 
>    Read the wikipedia page on /etc/hosts:
> 
>                 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_%28file%29>
> 

Only one correction: the bit about "hosts on your local network". /etc/hosts
and related files are not limited in their scope to local (LAN) hosts. You
can put any IP address/DNS name mapping you wish in /etc/hosts. And you can
block script kiddies in Asia, Russia, etc. by adding entries in /etc/hosts.deny.

The way to think of /etc/hosts is simply as a way to override all DNS
lookups for specified hostnames. /etc/hosts is always consulted first, and
if the information is found there, the real DNS server is never consulted.

Carlos