Re: /etc/hosts localhost with computer name?

["Harald Dunkel" <harald.dunkel@t-online.de>]

VSJ wrote:
> Hi,
>
> yesterday I've installed Debian using Debian Installer RC1 ISO
>
> after installation, the /etc/hosts file starts with the following line:
>
> 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost <hostname>
>
> where <hostname> is the computer name given during install after the 
> DHCP/network config dialog.
>
> I'd like to know if it's a standard or if there's a special reason to link 
> <hostname> with localhost/127.0.0.1.

Thats to make network connections to your own machine
use the loopback device instead of the network interface
card. The loopback device usually exists in Unix, even if
there is no NIC.

I would agree that this is a bad idea, especially if you
rely upon an external network service to do a mapping
between IP addresses and host names, e.g. NIS, DNS, LDAP,
DHCP, whatever. How should this service know whats written
in your /etc/hosts file?


Regards

Harri