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NAME

na_hosts - Host name data base

SYNOPSIS

/etc/hosts

DESCRIPTION

The hosts file contains information regarding the known hosts on the network. For each host an entry should be present with the following information:

Internet-address official-host-name aliases

When both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are configured for a particular host, there will be a separate entry in the file for each address. 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 maximum line length is 1022 characters. There is no way to continue an entry past the end of the line.

This file may be 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.

IPv4 network addresses are specified in the conventional ``.'' (dot) notation. IPv6 addresses are specified in any of the conventional forms i.e., the colon delimited compressed form or the mixed IPv6 and IPv4 notation. Host names may contain any alphanumeric character, but not field delimiters, newline, or comment characters.

FILES

/etc/hosts

SEE ALSO

na_hostname(1), na_dns(8), na_nis(8)


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