Johnny Hughes wrote: > On 03/07/2011 02:22 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote: >> 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 >> >> 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. <snip> > You guys do know that the names in your host file only apply to YOU on > that machine right? It does not matter if you connect to 127.0.0.1 or > something else UNLESS you specifically listen on a specific IP address > on that machine AND you need to connect to that address from the machine > itself. <snip> Let me expand on the above: if anyone on *any* other machine is trying to connect to that, it won't work. If they try to point a browser to it, unless they've done ssh -X to the server, they'll talk to their *own* machine, and it won't be found. mark