Re: where is /etc/hosts supposed to come from?

[Iustin Pop <iusty@k1024.org>]

On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 04:12:30PM +0100, Jeremiah Foster wrote:
> 
> On Dec 31, 2009, at 15:04, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> 
> > On 2009-12-31 14:10:46 +0100, Mike Hommey wrote:
> >> On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 02:02:36PM +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> >>> POSIX says:
> 
> Have we resolved where the canonical hostname is going to reside or does reside? 
> 
> Debian's policy manual[0] states that `hostname --fqdn` is where this information should be gathered from. Is that the canonical method?

This is a personal opinion, but having the canonical name rely on
“hostname --fqdn” is not a favorite of mine: hostname needs the resolver
to be working and functioning (e.g. it talks to your nameservers if
/etc/hosts doesn't contain your hostname/ip already).

IMHVO, this is a brittle setup and the FQDN should be available directly
on the host, without external dependencies. Which is why I personally
think the machine name (the one that the kernel knows) should hold the
canonical name.

Just my opinion, no need to flame - I know I lost this argument many
times already.

regards,
iustin