From owner-freebsd-questions  Mon Jan 15 08:31:05 1996
Return-Path: owner-questions
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id IAA22003
          for questions-outgoing; Mon, 15 Jan 1996 08:31:05 -0800 (PST)
Received: from tomcat1.tbe.com (tomcat1.tbe.com [140.165.31.1])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id IAA21989
          for <questions@freebsd.org>; Mon, 15 Jan 1996 08:30:51 -0800 (PST)
Received: from [140.165.210.81] by tomcat1.tbe.com via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI.AUTO)
	 id KAA01326; Mon, 15 Jan 1996 10:31:06 -0600
Message-Id: <v02130502ad202ec5ddd0@[140.165.210.81]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 10:31:11 -0600
To: questions@freebsd.org
From: dkelly@tomcat1.tbe.com (David Kelly)
Subject: "man hosts" question
Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org
Precedence: bulk

In helping a non-unix friend setup FreeBSD for the first time I checked
"man hosts" and now think this FreeBSD man page is in error.

>  The hosts file contains information regarding the known hosts on the net-
>  work.  For each host a single line should be present with the following
>  information:
>
>        official host name
>        Internet address
>        aliases
>
>  Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or tab characters.  A
>  ``#'' indicates the beginning of a comment; characters up to the end of
>  the line are not interpreted by routines which search the file.

Shouldn't the internet address preceed the official host name? No where
else in the man page does it suggest the correct order is any other than
the above list.

Consulting Irix 5.3:

>  The /etc/hosts file contains information regarding the known hosts on the
>  network.  For each host a single line should be present with the
>  following information:
>
>     o Internet address
>
>     o official host name
>
>     o aliases (optional)

The man page under Irix is almost identical. However the order of items is
different, while Irix and FreeBSD host files are interchangable.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@tomcat1.tbe.com, dkelly@iquest.com
============================================================
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you;
but if you really make them think they'll hate you.