NAME
hosts - host name data base

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.

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.

This file may be created from the official host data base
maintained at the Network Information Control Center (NIC) (see
"FYI on Where to Start - A Bibliography of Internetworking
Information" (RFC1175) in the MachTen System & Network
Administration manual), though local changes may be required to
bring it up to date regarding unofficial aliases and/or unknown
hosts. As the data base maintained at NIC is incomplete, use of
the name server is recommend for sites on the DARPA Internet.

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

FILES
/etc/hosts

SEE ALSO
gethostbyname(3), ifconfig(8), named(8)
"Name Server Operations Guide for BIND" (see the MachTen System &
Network Administration manual)