hosts

HOSTS(5)                  OpenBSD Programmer's Manual                 HOSTS(5)

NAME

     hosts - host name database

DESCRIPTION

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

           Internet address
           Official host name
           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.

     The system configuration file resolv.conf(5) controls where host name
     information will be searched for.  The mechanism provided permits the
     administrator to describe the databases to search; the databases
     currently known include yp(8), DNS and the hosts database.

     When using the name server named(8), this file provides a backup when the
     name server is not running.  For the name server, it is suggested that
     only a few addresses be included in this file.  These include addresses
     for the local interfaces that ifconfig(8) needs at boot time and a few
     machines on the local network.

     Internet addresses are specified using either dot notation (IPv4) or
     colon separated notation (IPv6).  Further information on network
     addressing is contained in inet(3).  Host names may contain any printable
     character other than a field delimiter, newline, or comment character.

FILES

     /etc/hosts

SEE ALSO

     getaddrinfo(3), gethostbyname(3), getnameinfo(3), inet(3),
     resolv.conf(5), ifconfig(8), named(8)

     Name Server Operations Guide for BIND.

HISTORY

     The hosts file format appeared in 4.2BSD.

     An official host database used to be maintained at the Network
     Information Control Center (NIC).

BUGS

     A name server should be used instead of a static file.

     Lines in /etc/hosts are limited to BUFSIZ characters (currently 1024).
     Longer lines will be ignored.

OpenBSD 5.1                    October 16, 2011                    OpenBSD 5.1