RE: Local address lookup

[Jan Willem Stumpel <jstumpel@planet.nl>]

Carlos Henriques dos Santos wrote:

> host.conf is obsolete, i think it was used by old libc5.
> You must edit /etc/nsswitch.conf:
>
>  hosts:          files dns

1. When was this change made? Is it documented anywhere? (I
   could find no references on the Web).
2. There must be some truth in Carlos's remarks, because renaming
   nsswitch.conf to something else makes it impossible to telnet
   to a machine on my local net at all.
3. But it is not the whole truth, because (as I said) I have an
   /etc/nsswitch.conf file on my machine, and it says
      hosts:       files dns
   and still local lookups do not work (i.e. outside name servers
   are consulted first).

So I am still hoping for a lecture from somebody on "local address 
lookup on a modern Linux system".

Regards, Jan