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-
- HOSTNAME(7) UNIX Reference Manual HOSTNAME(7)
-
- NNAAMMEE
- hhoossttnnaammee - host name resolution description
-
- DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
- Hostnames are domains, where a domain is a hierarchical, dot-separated
- list of subdomains; for example, the machine monet, in the Berkeley sub-
- domain 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).) Host-
- names are resolved by the Internet name resolver in the following fash-
- ion.
-
- 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 white-space 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
- case-insensitive 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 lithi-
- um.CChem.CS.Berkeley.EDU and then as lithium.CChem.Berkeley.EDU. Lithi-
- um.CChem.EDU will not be tried, as the there is only one component re-
- maining from the local domain. The search path can be changed from the
- default by a system-wide configuration file (see resolv.conf(5)).
-
- SSEEEE AALLSSOO
- gethostbyname(3), resolv.conf(5), mailaddr(7), named(8)
-
- HHIISSTTOORRYY
- HHoossttnnaammee appeared in 4.2 BSD.
-
- 4.2 Berkeley Distribution December 30, 1993 1
-