NAME

hosts − host name data base

DESCRIPTION

The hosts file contains information regarding the known hosts on the DARPA Internet.  For each host a single line should be present with the following information:

official host name

Internet address

aliases

Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or tab characters.  A “#” indicates the beginning of a comment; characters up to the end of the line are not interpreted by routines which search the file.  This file is normally created from the official host data base maintained at the Network Information Control Center (NIC), though local changes may be required to bring it up to date regarding unofficial aliases and/or unknown hosts. 

Network addresses are specified in the conventional “.” notation using the inet_addr() routine from the Internet address manipulation library, inet(3N). Host names may contain any printable character other than a field delimiter, newline, or comment character.

FILES

/etc/hosts

SEE ALSO

gethostent(3N)

BUGS

A name server should be used instead of a static file.  A binary indexed file format should be available for fast access. 

Sun Release 1.1  —  Last change: 15 January 1983