Impacts of /etc/hosts Permission

[morganelan]

Hi unix gurus,
What do the impacts if I change the /etc/hosts permission to 400??Thanks in advance.

[RAC_1]

Not good. Applications/programs, that want to do name search (if that you use for host name resolution), it will run into problem. Perms 444 are better.

[Luk Vandenbussche]

I wouldn't do it.
If a normal user can't perform a name resolution through /etc/hosts anymore

[Arunvijai_4]

It's better to go with 444 for /etc/hosts since normal users cant read with 400.

-Arun

[Zigor Buruaga]

Hi,

The applications that ask hosts file will not be able to read it.
I think HP says that it should be 0444.

Regards,
Zigor

[melvyn burnard]

I have seen Oracle fail due to inabillity to read the hosts file.
Don't do it, rather have 444 as the permissions

[Sudeesh]

I wouldn't do it. If a program run by normal user want to access it, 400 may create issues. I will stick with the default 544.

Sudeesh

[morganelan]

Which application needs /etc/hosts ? Thanks in advance ...

[Muthukumar_5]

It is good to keep default setting of 444 to /etc/hosts and related configuration files like /etc/nsswitch.conf or /etc/resolv.conf.

It is giving permission of read to all. You can change 400 also when no can even read that except root user.

hth.

[Arunvijai_4]

Many applications like Oracle, Jboss, Weblogic, apache, etc.. requires to read /etc/hosts.

-Arun

[Joseph Loo]

hi,

don't. 444 (bin:bin) will do.

application like Oracle, etc requires to read /etc/hosts.

regards.

[morganelan]

many thanks all of you ....