Re: Host Name Problem

[Loban Rahman <loban earthling net>]

>       Thanks for the clarification.  It's been a while since I sorted all
> this out on my own to get ppp working.  I haven't really comprehended DNS. 
> It was my understanding that hosts listed in /etc/hosts were looked for at
> bootup, so that if I have a standalone machine, it's better to leave my
> ISP's name and address out of /etc/hosts.  Are you saying that I will
> connect more quickly if I include a line for my ISP in /etc/hosts even if
> it's a dialup connection?

DNS is, in a nutshell, responsible for translating from alphanumeric
hostnames (e.g enigma.caltech.edu) to it's corresponding ip address. In
order to do this, your machine connects to a dns server and passes it's
query to it. Before it queries the dns server, it first checks your
/etc/hosts file to see if a particular hostname is listed there - if it
is, it uses the value listed there, and doesn't bother contacting the
dns server. 127.0.0.1 is the loopback device and should always be
localhost. The other usual entry in /etc/hosts is the name of the
machine itself, so that it doesn't have to look itself up using the dns
server.

/-------------------------------------------------------------------\
|   LOBAN AMAAN RAHMAN  <-- anagram of -->  AHA! AN ABNORMAL MAN!   |
|  MSC #763, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91126, USA. Tel: 1-626-395-1035  |
|     loban earthling net, loban caltech edu, http://i.am/loban     |
\-------------------------------------------------------------------/