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HOSTS(5) BSD File Formats Manual HOSTS(5)
NAME
hosts -- host name data base
DESCRIPTION
The hosts file contains information regarding the known hosts on the network. For each host a single
line should be present with the following information:
Internet address
Official host name
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.
Network addresses may either be specified for IP version 4 or version 6. IP version 4 addresses are
specified in the conventional dotted address notation. IP version 6 addresses are specified using the
colon-separated notation described in RFC1924.
Host names may contain any printable character other than a field delimiter, newline, or comment char-acter. character.
acter.
INTERACTION WITH DIRECTORY SERVICES
Processes generally find host-related information using the routines described in gethostent(3),
getipnodebyname(3), getaddrinfo(3), and getnameinfo(3). On Mac OS X, these functions interact with the
DirectoryService(8) daemon, which reads the /etc/hosts file as well as searching other directory infor-mation information
mation services, most notably the Domain Name System (DNS).
FILES
/etc/hosts
SEE ALSO
gethostent(3), getipnodebyname(3), getaddrinfo(3), getnameinfo(3), DirectoryService(8)
RFC1924: A Compact Representation of IPv6 Addresses.
HISTORY
The hosts file format appeared in 4.2BSD.
4.2 Berkeley Distribution December 11, 1993 4.2 Berkeley Distribution
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