HOSTNAME(7)HOSTNAME(7)NAMEhostname - host name resolution description
DESCRIPTION
Hostnames are domains, where a domain is a hierarchical, dot-separated
list of subdomains; for example, the machine monet, in the Berkeley
subdomain of the EDU subdomain of the ARPANET would be represented as
monet.Berkeley.EDU
(with no trailing dot).
Hostnames are often used with network client and server programs, which
must generally translate the name to an address for use. (This
function is generally performed by the library routine
gethostbyname(3).) Hostnames are resolved by the internet name
resolver in the following fashion.
If the name consists of a single component, i.e. contains no dot, and
if the environment variable ``HOSTALIASES'' is set to the name of a
file, that file is searched for an string matching the input hostname.
The file should consist of lines made up of two white-space separated
strings, the first of which is the hostname alias, and the second of
which is the complete hostname to be substituted for that alias. If a
case-sensitive match is found between the hostname to be resolved and
the first field of a line in the file, the substituted name is looked
up with no further processing.
If the input name ends with a trailing dot, the trailing dot is
removed, and the remaining name is looked up with no further
processing.
If the input name does not end with a trailing dot, it is looked up in
the local domain and its parent domains until either a match is found
or fewer than 2 components of the local domain remain. For example, in
the domain CS.Berkeley.EDU, the name lithium.CChem will be checked
first as lithium.CChem.CS.Berkeley.EDU and then as
lithium.CChem.Berkeley.EDU. Lithium.CChem.EDU will not be tried, as
the there is only one component remaining from the local domain.
SEE ALSOgethostbyname(3), resolver(5), mailaddr(7), named(8), RFC883
4.2 Berkeley Distribution November 21, 1987 HOSTNAME(7)