host.conf — resolver configuration file
The file /etc/host.conf
contains configuration information specific to the resolver
library. It should contain one configuration keyword per
line, followed by appropriate configuration information. The
keywords recognized are order
,
trim
, multi
, nospoof
,
spoof
, and reorder
. These keywords are described
below.
order
This keyword specifies how host lookups are to be
performed. It should be followed by one or more lookup
methods, separated by commas. Valid methods are
bind
, hosts
, and nis
.
trim
This keyword may be listed more than once. Each time it should be followed by a list of domains, separated by colons (':'), semicolons (';') or commas (','), with the leading dot. When set, the resolv+ library will automatically trim the given domain name from the end of any hostname resolved via DNS. This is intended for use with local hosts and domains. (Related note: trim will not affect hostnames gathered via NIS or the hosts file. Care should be taken to ensure that the first hostname for each entry in the hosts file is fully qualified or unqualified, as appropriate for the local installation.)
multi
Valid values are on
and
off
. If set to
on
, the resolv+ library
will return all valid addresses for a host that appears
in the /etc/hosts
file,
instead of only the first. This is off
by default, as it may cause a
substantial performance loss at sites with large hosts
files.
nospoof
Valid values are on
and
off
. If set to
on
, the resolv+ library
will attempt to prevent hostname spoofing to enhance
the security of rlogin and
rsh. It
works as follows: after performing a host address
lookup, resolv+ will perform a hostname lookup for that
address. If the two hostnames do not match, the query
will fail. The default value is off
.
spoofalert
Valid values are on
and
off
. If this option is set
to on
and the nospoof
option is also set, resolv+
will log a warning of the error via the syslog
facility. The default value is off
.
spoof
Valid values are off
,
nowarn
and warn
. If this option is set to
off
, spoofed addresses are
permitted and no warnings will be emitted via the
syslog facility. If this option is set to warn
, resolv+ will attempt to prevent
hostname spoofing to enhance the security and log a
warning of the error via the syslog facility. If this
option is set to nowarn
,
the resolv+ library will attempt to prevent hostname
spoofing to enhance the security but not emit warnings
via the syslog facility. Setting this option to
anything else is equal to setting it to nowarn
.
reorder
Valid values are on
and
off
. If set to
on
, resolv+ will attempt
to reorder host addresses so that local addresses
(i.e., on the same subnet) are listed first when a
gethostbyname(3) is
performed. Reordering is done for all lookup methods.
The default value is off
.
There are six environment variables that can be used to
allow users to override the behavior which is configured in
/etc/host.conf
.
RESOLV_HOST_CONF
If set this variable points to a file that should be
read instead of /etc/host.conf
.
RESOLV_SERV_ORDER
Overrides the order
command.
RESOLV_SPOOF_CHECK
Overrides the nospoof
,
spoofalert
and
spoof
commands in the same
way as the spoof
command
is parsed. Valid values are off
, nowarn
and warn
.
RESOLV_MULTI
Overrides the multi
command.
RESOLV_REORDER
Overrides the reorder
command.
RESOLV_ADD_TRIM_DOMAINS
A list of domains, separated by colons (':'), semicolons (';') or commas (','), with the leading dot, which will be added to the list of domains that should be trimmed.
RESOLV_OVERRIDE_TRIM_DOMAINS
A list of domains, separated by colons (':'),
semicolons (';') or commas (','), with the leading dot,
which will replace the list of domains that should be
trimmed. Overrides the trim
command.
/etc/host.conf
Resolver configuration file
/etc/resolv.conf
Resolver configuration file
/etc/hosts
Local hosts database
The following differences exist compared to the original
implementation. A new command spoof
and a new environment variable
RESOLV_SPOOF_CHECK
can take
arguments like off
, nowarn
and warn
. Line comments can appear anywhere and
not only at the beginning of a line.
This page is part of release 3.24 of the Linux man-pages
project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting
bugs, can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Copyright (c) 1997 Martin Schulze (joeyinfodrom.north.de) This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. The GNU General Public License's references to "object code" and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any document formatting or typesetting system, including intermediate and printed output. This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Much of the text is copied from the manpage of resolv+(8). 2003-08-23 Martin Schulze <joeyinfodrom.org> Updated according to glibc 2.3.2 |