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Internet Technologies
and Their Applications

• Introduction
• DNS and IP-numbers
  • /etc/hosts
  • DNS
  • IP-numbers
  • NAT
  • URIs
  • IDN
• E-mail
• html and xhtml
• p2p
• Keeping Current
• References

/etc/hosts

As you we told during the lecture, the original use for the file /etc/hosts was to have a complete record of every computer connected to the Internet. With the advent of the DNS servers, this use of /etc/hosts was abandoned.

The present day use of /etc/hosts is for special cases.
The most common uses are the following:

• redirecting URLs to localhost for testing purposes
• redirecting URLs to other computers on a LAN or WAN

Take for instance a look at my /etc/hosts:

[03:15:46@bjarne]$ cat /etc/hosts
##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost 
#
62.79.74.88     test.mozilla.info
192.168.1.15    test.webadmin.info
127.0.0.1       test.dturunners.dk
127.0.0.1       test.dtu.info
[03:15:49@bjarne]$

pharming

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/57159

Bjarne D Mathiesen