Adding my own entries to /etc/hosts and getting them to WORK!

Bes · 1 Aug 2009 at 13:50

Hi,

As per title, just adding to /etc/hosts is not enough, and as there is no nsswitch.conf to configure looking up in files first, how am I supposed to do this?

Thanks

LordSplodge · 1 Aug 2009 at 15:08

I've just looked through my official Apple OS X training manuals (Desktop and Server books) and there is no mention of how to configure /etc/hosts

Given the UNIX core it should be possible but I am also not sure.

Sorry.

Spyhop · 1 Aug 2009 at 16:23

Editing just that file worked for me in the past. Has some recent version of Leopard changed things?

Bes · 2 Aug 2009 at 00:49

Yes.... It doesn't work

memyselfandi · 2 Aug 2009 at 08:51

Should be the opposite, host file usage should work as it would on a standard Unix platform so just edit the file and try and ping the host, (note that if you can't get to an address you added through Firefox then take that offline and online again to flush it's IP cache ... other applications may have similar issues).

On earlier versions you may have had to tell lookupd to use a host file using the niutil command but that shouldn't be needed now.

In fact I've just checked by adding a host to /etc/hosts on my Leopard install and, apart from having to remember to use sudo when editing the file, it worked exactly as expected and the host was immediately resolvable (and this is an internal host which is definitely not in DNS).

Bes · 2 Aug 2009 at 10:07

Ok so I added mysite.mac<tab>localhost, rebooted, and it is unreachable... What gives?

memyselfandi · 3 Aug 2009 at 13:37

Bes said:
Ok so I added mysite.mac<tab>localhost, rebooted, and it is unreachable... What gives?

That syntax is wrong. Host file entires should have the syntax:

ip-address fully-qualified-domain-name short-name

where you don't have to have both the names but for completeness you should. The purpose of the entry is to relate an ip-address to a hostname, you are not doing that in your example.

e.g.

192.168.0.5 memyselfandi.overclockers.co.uk memyselfandi

will resolve memyselfandi (or memyselfandi.overclockers.co.uk) to 192.168.0.5. Note that the localhost entry in this case should only be against the loopback address, i.e.

127.0.0.1 localhost