HOSTS(5)                  FreeBSD File Formats Manual                 HOSTS(5)

NAME

     hosts - host name data base

DESCRIPTION

     The hosts file contains information regarding the known hosts on the
     network.  It can be used in conjunction with DNS, and the NIS maps
     `hosts.byaddr' and `hosts.byname', as controlled by nsswitch.conf(5).
     For each host a single line should be present with the following
     information:

           Internet address
           official host name
           aliases

     Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or tab characters.  A
     ``#'' indicates the beginning of a comment; characters up to the end of
     the line are not interpreted by routines which search the file.

     This file provides a backup used when the name server is not running.
     For the name server, it is suggested that only a few addresses be
     included in this file.  These include addresses for the local interfaces
     that ifconfig(8) needs at boot time and a few machines on the local
     network.

     Network addresses are specified in either the conventional ``.'' (dot)
     notation for IPv4 or colon hexadecimal notation for IPv6, as understood
     by the inet_pton(3) routine from the Internet address manipulation
     library, inet(3).  Host names may contain any printable character other
     than a field delimiter, newline, or comment character.

FILES

     /etc/hosts  The hosts file resides in /etc.

SEE ALSO

     gethostbyname(3), inet(3), nsswitch.conf(5), ifconfig(8)

HISTORY

     The hosts file format appeared in 4.1cBSD.

FreeBSD 15.1-STABLE-HBSD      September 15, 2022                      HOSTS(5)