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HOSTNAME(7)

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NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     hostname - host name resolution description

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     Hostnames are domains, where a  domain  is  a  hierarchical,
dot-separated
     list  of  subdomains; for example, the machine monet, in the
Berkeley subdomain
 of the EDU subdomain of the Internet would be  represented as

           monet.Berkeley.EDU

     (with no trailing dot).

     Hostnames are often used with network client and server programs, which
     must generally translate the name to  an  address  for  use.
(This function
     is  generally  performed  by  the library routine gethostbyname(3).) Hostnames
 are resolved by the Internet name resolver in the following fashion.


     If  the  name consists of a single component, i.e., contains
no dot, and if
     the environment variable HOSTALIASES is set to the name of a
file, that
     file is searched for any string matching the input hostname.
The file
     should consist of lines made up of two whitespace  separated
strings, the
     first  of  which  is  the  hostname alias, and the second of
which is the complete
 hostname to be substituted for that alias.  If a caseinsensitive
     match  is  found between the hostname to be resolved and the
first field of
     a line in the file, the substituted name is looked  up  with
no further
     processing.

     If the input name ends with a trailing dot, the trailing dot
is removed,
     and the remaining name is looked up with no further processing.

     If  the  input  name does not end with a trailing dot, it is
looked up by
     searching through a list of domains until a match is  found.
The default
     search list includes first the local domain, then its parent
domains with
     at least 2 name components (longest first).  For example, in
the domain
     CS.Berkeley.EDU,  the  name  lithium.CChem  will  be checked
first as lithium.CChem.CS.Berkeley.EDU
 and  then  as  lithium.CChem.Berkeley.EDU.  Lithium.CChem.EDU
  will not be tried, as there is only one component remaining
     from the local domain.  The search path can be changed  from
the default
     by a system-wide configuration file (see resolv.conf(5)).

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

      
      
     gethostbyname(3), resolv.conf(5), mailaddr(7), named(8)

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     A hostname manual page appeared in 4.2BSD.

OpenBSD      3.6                        December     30,     1993
[ Back ]
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