Re: Is there any point to full host names in /etc/hosts ?

On Fri, 2 Nov 2007 12:44:11 +0100, Rikishi 42 <skunkworks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
| This is the situation: a friend and I both use a broadband router with a few
| machines behind them, at our respective homes. We each picked a name for our
| 'domain'. His is fictional. Mine also exists on the net, but with only the
| www and ftp of rikishi42.net defined in the DNS, not my home machines.
|
| He's added 2 of my PC's in the /etc/hosts of his laptop, for use when he
| visits and connects it to my LAN.
|
| This would be a sample from that file:
|
| # Home net
| 192.168.108.101 desktop.myDomain desktop
| 192.168.108.124 laptop.myDomain laptop
| 192.168.108.101 server.myDomain server
| #Rikishi's net
| 192.168.8.142 gramps.rikishi42.net gramps
| 192.168.8.181 pigmy.rikishi42.net pigmy
|
|
| We've allways used this, works just fine.
| When connectiong to my machines, he's allways used the short (host only)
| name. Last time, he accidentally tried with the full name. It failed.
|
|
| My guess is that, upon finding that rikishi42.net exists, there is an
| attempt to get the address from the DNS, skipping hosts all together.
|
| But do I presume correctly, or is there more to it?


/etc/nsswitch.conf determines whether DNS or /etc/hosts is checked
first, and whether the other is checked at all.

Sounds like your friend might have DNS first. The second choice is
generally only checked if the first fails (i.e DNS is unreachable). If
DNS returns a "host does not exist" error, that does not trigger a fall
back to /etc/hosts.


--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro
.

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