Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 21:44:46 -0700 From: Kevin Stevens <freebsd@pursued-with.net> To: David Fuchs <david@davidfuchs.ca> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [Fwd: /etc/hosts and /etc/host.conf confusion] Message-ID: <B5AD052E-CCAB-11D8-8439-000A959CEE6A@pursued-with.net> In-Reply-To: <40E62A8C.1040908@davidfuchs.ca> References: <40E62A8C.1040908@davidfuchs.ca>
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On Jul 2, 2004, at 20:39, David Fuchs wrote: > # $FreeBSD: src/etc/host.conf,v 1.6 1999/08/27 23:23:41 peter Exp $ > # First try the /etc/hosts file > hosts > # Now try the nameserver next. > bind > # If you have YP/NIS configured, uncomment the next line > # nis That's typical. > Considering that 'hosts' is listed first, I would expect that any > entries I add to /etc/hosts will take precedence over entries > retrieved from bind. So, I added an entry to this file for a random > IP-to-name mapping, and tested it with the 'host(1)' command, and it > failed. When I enable debugging, it clearly shows that it's > consulting the first nameserver listed in resolv.conf (an external > host), no mention of a hosts file anywhere (or attempt to send a > request to the local host) Try ping; even if the host isn't available you can see if it resolves. "host" does it's own thing, which is sometimes non-obvious (to me at least). Look at the sections in man host about the variables it expects to be configured. > Additionally, what classifies as 'when the name server is not running' > - does this mean that /etc/hosts is used when all the nameservers > listed in /etc/resolv.conf are unavailable? (As I only use the local > named(8) daemon to host my personal domain, not for everyday recursive > lookups.) Or does it literally refer to when my local copy of > named(8) is not in the process list? The latter. For example, many workstations aren't configured to run named at all; they'll still reference their local hosts file. KeS
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