how to configure hostname and /etc/hosts?

[Matus UHLAR - fantomas <uhlar@fantomas.sk>]

Hello,

I have a notebook which I often move between sites and ocasionally use
without network connection.
I have set up hostname to 'fnote' and set up /etc/hosts this way:

127.0.0.1       localhost       fnote.local     fnote

This means, that "fnote" resolves along with "fnote.local" and of course
"localhost" to 127.0.0.1, while 127.0.0.1 resolves to "localhost" -

I've logically expected that 127.0.0.1 should always resolve to "localhost"
and vice versa. (searching google supports this opinion)

However, when programming a script that uses `hostname -s` convention to get
the first component of the hostname (some people use to set hostname to
their FQDN and I'd like my script to be portable), I found out that
`hostname -s` command does not only strip the hostname until the first dot,
but it first tries to get the FQDN and then it strips the first part.

Thinking it's a bug in hostname I filled bug report:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=345761

however the report was rejected and closed because the maintainer says
"It's not a bug". I don't agree with this opinion, but I'd like to ask in
public, if you think my setup is correct.

-- 
Matus UHLAR - fantomas, uhlar@fantomas.sk ; http://www.fantomas.sk/
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