Re: Jessie goals, and /etc/host.conf
On May 15, 2013, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 07:26:26PM -0600, Gordon Haverland
wrote:
> > I wrote a note to my LUG about the use of /etc/hosts to
> > lessen the chance of visiting some types of web sites, and
> > got a reply saying that /etc/host.conf was deprecated. And
> > a long time ago.
> >
> > I'm running unstable, surely if /etc/host.conf was deprecated
> > I would have seen a note about it in the past? And yet, it
> > is still on my computer, and still part of base-files.
>
> It has not been deprecated. It's rare that a user should need
> to make changes to this file, but it remains a current
> interface for globally configuring the behavior of the libc
> resolver.
Supposedly you've been reading source more than me lately, but
almost all the non-source documentation says that the resolver in
modern libc (and this goes back 5 or more years) does not use
/etc/host.conf.
I can see a need for a small libc as being more pressing in a
router, and maybe libc in OpenWRT is more ancient than what Debian
provides. But, I can go dig through the code manually to see if
libc in OpenWRT (a year ago) actually uses /etc/host.conf. I have
better things to do, but if this needs to get cleared up, I am
willing to go reading source code. But, if my entire ImageBuilder
archive (of 1 year ago) has no need of /etc/host.conf, I think
maintainers in Linux should consider removing it. Because
nsswitch.conf is supposed to be providing all that information.
Gord
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