Configuring Your /etc/hosts File

Configuring Your /etc/hosts File

The /etc/hosts file is just a list of IP addresses and their corresponding server names. Your server will typically check this file before referencing DNS. If the name is found with a corresponding IP address, DNS won't be queried at all. Unfortunately, if the IP address for that host changes, you also have to update the file. This may not be much of a concern for a single server, but can become laborious if it has to be done companywide. For ease of management, it is often easiest to limit entries in this file to just the loopback interface and also the server's own hostname, and use a centralized DNS server to handle most of the rest. Sometimes you may not be the one managing the DNS server, and in such cases it may be easier to add a quick /etc/hosts file entry until the centralized change can be made:

     192.168.1.101 smallfry

In this example, server smallfry has an IP address of 192.168.1.101. You can access 192.168.1.101 using ping, telnet, or any other network-aware program by referring to it as smallfry. Here is an example using the ping command to see whether smallfry is alive and well on the network:

     [root@bigboy tmp]# ping smallfry
     PING zero (192.168.1.101) 56(84) bytes of data.
     64 bytes from smallfry (192.168.1.101): icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.197
     ms
     64 bytes from smallfry (192.168.1.101): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.047
     ms

     --- smallfry ping statistics ---
     2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 2017ms
     rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.034/0.092/0.197/0.074 ms, pipe 2
     [root@bigboy tmp]#

You can also add aliases to the end of the line, which enable you to refer to the server using other names. Here we have set it up so that smallfry can also be accessed using the names tiny and littleguy:

     192.168.1.101   smallfry  tiny  littleguy

You should never have an IP address more than once in this file because Linux will use only the values in the first entry it finds:

     192.168.1.101   smallfry      # (Wrong)
     192.168.1.101   tiny          # (Wrong)
     192.168.1.101   littleguy     # (Wrong)

The loopback Interface's localhost Entry

Usually the first entry in /etc/hosts defines the IP address of the server's virtual loopback interface. This is usually mapped to the name localhost.localdomain (the universal name used when a server refers to itself) and localhost (the shortened alias name). By default, Fedora inserts the hostname of the server between the 127.0.0.1 and the localhost entries like this:

     127.0.0.1    bigboy    localhost.localdomain    localhost

When the server is connected to the Internet, this first entry after the 127.0.0.1 needs to be the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the serverfor example, bigboy.mysite.com:

     127.0.0.1    bigboy.my-web-site.org   localhost.localdomain   localhost

Some programs such as Sendmail are very sensitive to this and if they detect what they feel is an incorrect FQDN they will default to using the name localhost.localdomain when communicating with another server on the network. This can cause confusion, because the other server also feels it is localhost.localdomain.