>> >> >> On 4/10/19 8:23 AM, Simon Matter via CentOS wrote: >>>> Hi, >>>> >>>> For the last ten years or so, I've defined the short hostname in >>>> /etc/hostname and the FQDN in /etc/hosts. Now I wanted to double-check >>>> this information, which eventually led me to this page: >>>> >>>> * >>>> https://serverfault.com/questions/331936/setting-the-hostname-fqdn-or-short-name >>>> >>>> Now I admit I'm even more confused than before. >>>> >>>> Is there some reliable piece of information on this subject for CentOS >>>> ? >>> >>> IMHO for those having proper DNS in place, the hostname should be set >>> to >>> the FQDN in whatever place it is supposed to be set. I quite feel there >>> is >>> something wrong if the only place where the FQDN is listed is the >>> /etc/hosts file. >>> >>> I'm not very happy with how the issue was handled in Linux and the >>> different distributions in the last decades. Not to mention the >>> inconsistency in the relevant man pages. >> >> Well, I am unhappy for about as long about /etc/hosts and how name >> resolution "should" happen which it doesn't, namely, if >> /etc/nsswitch.conf says >> >> hosts: files dns >> >> then ideally /etc/hosts should be used first, then nameservers. However >> (and this is true both for Linux and FreeBSD), some commands never look >> into /etc/hosts (e.g., command host), whereas some do use /etc/hosts >> (e.g., command ping). > > Well, in case of the host command it seems clear that it doesn't look up > /etc/hosts as it is a "DNS lookup utility", as the man page states, and > not a general name resolution utility. I had to learn this, guess how. It's my impression that trying to resolve a host on a Linux system (and also other *nix like systems) is best done with the getent utility: getent hosts <hostname> It shows what other programs see as well. Regards, Simon