topic Re: Modifying /etc/hosts in Operating System - HP-UX

Modifying /etc/hosts

Arjun Kandasamy — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:28:16 GMT

Hi

Can anyone confirm if there are issues with modifying /etc/hosts while a server is in use?

kind regards

AK

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

Jeff Schussele — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:30:47 GMT

Hi AK,

Absolutely none at all.
It's used only as a lookup table.

Rgds,
Jeff

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

Robert-Jan Goossens — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:31:55 GMT

Nope not at all,

Just keep a copy in a save place.

Regards,
Robert-Jan

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

Pete Randall — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:32:40 GMT

AK,

Should be absolutely no problem at all!

Pete

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

Marco Santerre — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:33:59 GMT

You can modify /etc/hosts any time you want.

I've done it several times

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

A. Clay Stephenson — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:35:14 GMT

With the caveat that you don't introduce syntactic or logical errors to the hosts file then no there are no problems at all. The next gethostbyname() invoked by an application will immediately see the new host. If /etc/hosts is the map for NIS hosts then you must also invoke a ypmake to push the changes out.

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

Sridhar Bhaskarla — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:39:19 GMT

Hi AK,

I would not mind modifying /etc/hosts as long as I only add entries. I would think twice if I have to modify an existing entry as it may have an impact on the application. Some softwares like corba/tuxedo may not work unless you make changes on both ends of the connection.

-Sri

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

doug mielke — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:42:14 GMT

A couple of notes:
/etc/hosts is read sequentially, so keep the localhost entry near the top, and remember that if there are duplicates. only the first one will be recognised.

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

Steven E. Protter — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:43:33 GMT

It depends what you do to it.

If you take out the loopback address 127.0.0.1 you can mess up the server quite badly.

If you change the ip address of the host, you can mess up networking as well.

If you are adding entries to /etc/hosts for other servers the impact is less drastic.

If you are new, make and test these changes in a maintenance window.

SEP

Re: Modifying /etc/hosts

Arjun Kandasamy — Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:51:41 GMT

Thanks for the replies. We maintain a centralised hosts file on one server and then rcp it across out other servers. On of my colleagues has noticed that during the time of the actual rcp we suffered a number of disconnects in the SAP/OMNI/PATROL logs. The changes we are making to the source hosts file are 99.9% to do with addition/deletion of entries for printers.

AK