Managing Hosts

The Hosts tab allows you to add, edit, or remove hosts from the /etc/hosts file. This file contains IP addresses and their corresponding hostnames.

When your system tries to resolve a hostname to an IP address or determine the hostname for an IP address, it refers to the /etc/hosts file before using the name servers (if you are using the default Red Hat Linux configuration). If the IP address is listed in the /etc/hosts file, the name servers are not used. If your network contains computers whose IP addresses are not listed in DNS, it is recommended that you add them to the /etc/hosts file.

To add an entry to the /etc/hosts file, click Add in the Hosts tab, provide the requested information, and click OK. Click Apply to write the entry to the file.

	Warning
	Do not remove the localhost entry.

Tip

To change lookup order, edit the /etc/host.conf file. The line order hosts, bind specifies that the /etc/hosts takes precedence over the name servers. Changing the line to order bind, hosts configures your system to resolve hostnames and IP addresses using the name servers first. If the IP address can not be resolved through the name servers, your system looks for the IP address in the /etc/hosts file.