[CentOS] /etc/hosts - hostname alias for 127.0.0.1

Mon Mar 7 20:22:20 UTC 2011
m.roth at 5-cent.us <m.roth at 5-cent.us>

Keith Keller wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 07, 2011 at 10:34:24AM -0600, Sean Carolan wrote:
>> Can anyone point out reasons why it might be a bad idea to put this
>> sort of line in your /etc/hosts file, eg, pointing the FQDN at the
>> loopback address?
>>
>> 127.0.0.1    hostname.domain.com hostname   localhost
>> localhost.localdomain
>
> Would the application work with a hosts entry like this?
>
> 127.0.0.1    hostname.dummy   localhost localhost.localdomain
>
> (Make sure you pick .dummy so as not to interfere with any other DNS.)
>
> In theory you could leave off .dummy, but then you risk hostname being
> completed with the search domain in resolv.conf, which creates the
> problems already mentioned with putting hostname.domain.com in
> /etc/hosts.  (I have not tested this at all!)

And giving it 127.0.0.1 would tell it others to ignore it, I think. Where
did your user come up with this idea - clearly, they have *no* clue what
they're doing, and need at least a brown bag lunch about TCP/IP, and they
should not be allowed to dictate this. Their "idea" is a bug, and needs to
be fixed.

          mark