From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Dec 13 13:35:19 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from sage-american.com (sage-american.com [216.122.141.44]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 47B0937B41E for ; Thu, 13 Dec 2001 13:35:07 -0800 (PST) Received: from SAGEONE (adsl-64-219-20-2.dsl.crchtx.swbell.net [64.219.20.2]) by sage-american.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA10752; Thu, 13 Dec 2001 15:35:04 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.20011213153513.03dc67c8@mail.sage-american.com> X-Sender: jacks@mail.sage-american.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 15:35:13 -0600 To: "Joe & Fhe Barbish" , "FBSD Questions" From: jacks@sage-american.com Subject: Re: /etc/hosts file ? FBSD doc suck In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG hmmmm.... your "man" page didn't explain why choose that class IP versus any other class for the private IPs... when should one be picked over another... or shoudl it matter... you see, there are still holes in this "man" page.... At 04:18 PM 12.13.2001 -0500, Joe & Fhe Barbish wrote: >To all that commented on my first post about how bad >the man pages are. I do have a life other that FBSD >So I was not able to jump in sooner. I may not have a >Full understanding of the purpose of the hosts file >so I may be incorrect in some of the things I have >said below, but you will get a idea of what kind of >content it should provide as to supporting background >information I was talking about in my first post. > >This is what I think the man page for hosts should say. > >The customary normal purpose of the Hosts file is to provide >a convent place to post the IP address that have been assigned >to servers or LAN attached machines and equate them to >meaningfully names. It's far more convenient to remember a >name than a IP address when administrating the network. >FBSD user a naming convention based on domain name syntax of >Prefix.domain-name.com. Generally the domain-name.com is >intended to represent every thing at and behind this FBSD box. >Typically the domain-name used would be one you have registered >with a authorized register. But it can be any name you want >since this file is only seen by this FBSD box and those >connected behind it. A unique prefix can be used to identify each >machine and or service that requires an IP address to function. >The prefix name can be any name you choose to uniquely represent >that IP address. > >This is just a convenance function for the users of the this >local network. This file serves no other purpose other that to >equate IP address to names for easy of identification. No entries >have to be here other than those that come with the install to >set the default of localhost. > >The format of the configuration statements have 4 fields. >IP address= >The IP address you allocated to that service or machine. >If you have not been assigned a IP address range from your ISP, >then you must use one from the private IP address groups reserved >for just this purpose. > >Host= >This is the prefix name you want to use to identify the >equipment at that IP address. > >Alias1 = >This is the complete prefix.domain-name.com combination name you >want to use to represent this IP address. > >Alias 2 = optional. Can be any name you want. Such as persons >first name who uses that machine, or lan01 to mean first machine >on the LAN. > > >10.0.5.1 Gateway gateway.company-name.com mainhost >10.0.5.2 firewall firewall.company-name.com security >10.0.8.1 nic1lan01 nic1lan01.company-name.com david >10.0.8.5 nic1lan02 nic1lan01.company-name.com accounting1 > > >The following commands will all do the same thing. > >Ping 10.0.5.1 or ping gateway or ping mainhost > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > > Best regards, Jack L. Stone, Server Admin Sage-American http://www.sage-american.com jacks@sage-american.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message