HOWTO: Editing /etc/hosts

[FLeiXiuS]

Here is a quick how to, to edit your /etc/hosts file.
The $ represents a line of code you may enter in a terminal.

Open /etc/hosts with your favorite text editor. Remember to use sudo.

Format:
<IP> <HOSTNAME>.<DOMAIN> <ALIAS>

Example:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

IP
Replace the <IP> with the IP of your system. If your running DHCP do not worry about editing this file. To detect your IP address run

$ lsconfig

Then browse for the connected interface (eth0, wlan0, etc)

Hostname
Replace the <HOSTNAME> to your systems hostname.

To view current hostname:
$ hostname

To change hostname:
$ sudo hostname 'enterhostname'
(without quotes)

Domain Name
The domain name can be anything you like unless it must be resolv, which then you must use /etc/resolv.conf. But thats another issue i'll cover later!

Alias
Alias are simply another way to combine a set of arguments. When you create a hosts file, its simply creating a list of hosts on the network, or locally. Its much easier to understand if you kept the alias the same as the hostname. It saves a lot of trouble with debugging and troubleshooting. But you are free to use whatever you like.


That should help you out. Please comment!

[diebels]

Nice. You can make shortcuts for webpages with alias

216.239.37.99 www.google.com g

Type ctrl+L,g,enter in firefox to go to google.

[hayalci]

you can do the same more practically by giving a keyword to a bookmark, in firefox.
Just go to bookmars->manage bookmarks
and open the bookmark's properties, entering the keyword and
clicking OK.

this link describes more, quick searches, which in my opinion are great:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/fire...-keywords.html

[victorbrca]

Would anyone know why this would not work on Edgy?

I'm trying to access my webserver in my LAN, however due to my firewall I cannot use the external address, I have to use my internal address to my DMZ.

I'd like to have my translation done like this HOST.DOMAIN = DMZ IP. It's very useful when looking at information posted on the web with the source on ur webserver.

victor@victor-laptop:~$ cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.1.1       victor-laptop
10.10.0.2     www.mysite.dyndns.org    home
72.14.203.99    www.google.ca   g

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

The alias for google is also not working.

I also restarted my network and logged out and back in, but no doughnut..

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Thanks,


Vic.

[meonkeys]

Related links:

• Why does 127.0.1.1 appear in /etc/hosts?
• Should /etc/hostname contain the whole FQDN?
• More examples working with hostnames

What I can't find is a simple, complete best/standard practices guide on how to set the hostname for a laptop and for a box with a static IP and FQDN.