localhost or LAN addresses in /etc/hosts

[Chris G]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:58:43AM -0500, Bart Silverstrim wrote:
> Derek Broughton wrote:
> > Chris G wrote:
> > 
> >> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 02:44:28PM -0400, Derek Broughton wrote:
> > 
> >>> No, that's just the ONE place you have to do things.  In the time
> >>> you've been asking us how to do this with a piece of software that
> >>> you had to add to your system, I could have done the setup dozens of
> >>> times on a router.
> >>>
> >> ... and, similarly, I could have done it by editing /etc/hosts.
> > 
> > If you _could_ you wouldn't have  been asking here. 
> 
> I think the important thing at this particular point is to have everyone 
> just stop and review what the actual question is and what the options 
> are and then go from there. It sounds almost like now Chris (you're the 
> original poster, yes?) wanted a setup on a small network for DHCP 
> and...what? Making sure particular machines had the same IP every time? 
> Making sure they have particular DNS names? What is it exactly you're 
> trying to do on your network?
> 
I'm trying to use it!  :-)  I don't mind in the slightest whether it
uses/needs a DHCP server, or dnsmasq, or does clever things in the
router.  I want whichever of these various approaches will give me the
simplest network to set up and maintain.


> There are twelve ways to do things on any given network and if you 
> really want to do it the old fashioned way, give every device you will 
> constantly use a static IP, set up your Linux box as a DNS caching 
> server with your internal records authoritative for your internal IP's 
> and forwarding non-internal requests to your external DNS, and you'll 
> speed up your DNS searches in addition to having network names set up. 
> Set up DHCP for whatever block you want visitors to use, document your 
> network map, and you should be good to go. Would that work?
> 
Probably, but it will need more configuration and management than is
strictly necessary surely.


> I'm sure I'm missing what additional functionality you're looking for, 
> but this is a simple way to add the services that have been being hashed 
> in the thread for awhile here...
> 
When I started this thread I was just asking if *removing* the
127.0.0.x entries in /etc/hosts which have the name of the local
machine in them would break anything.  If I do that then dnsmasq
provides all I need on the local network with *very simple*
configuration.  To me it seems much simpler to do things this way than
other approaches that have been suggested here, it may not be for
everyone but that's not really the issue.

-- 
Chris Green