Solaris 10 ipnodes caveat

On Solaris 10, IPv4 addresses are looked up in /etc/inet/ipnodes before /etc/hosts.

From /etc/nsswitch.dns:

# Note that IPv4 addresses are searched for in all of the ipnodes databases
# before searching the hosts databases.

This means that if you have the following in /etc/nsswitch.conf

ipnodes:   files dns
hosts:      files dns

the IPv4 resolution order will be:

1. /etc/inet/ipnodes
2. DNS (name servers in /etc/resolv.conf)
3. /etc/hosts
4. DNS (name servers in /etc/resolv.conf)

This may confuse administrators accustomed to placing IPv4 addresses in /etc/hosts to override resource records in DNS.

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Last modified: 2006/11/16