Re: [gentoo-user] Why do we add the local host name to the 127.0.0.1 / ::1 entry in the /etc/hosts file?

[Grant Taylor <gtaylor@gentoo.tnetconsulting.net>]

On 3/10/21 6:27 AM, Mark Knecht wrote:
> Caveat - not an expert, just my meager understanding:
> 
> 1) The name 'localhost' is historically for developers who want to 
> access their own machine _without_ using DNS.

Eh....

Using the /name/ "localhost" still uses name resolution.  It could use 
DNS or it may not.  It /typically/ means the /etc/hosts file.  But it 
could mean DNS or NIS(+) or LDAP or something more esoteric.

IMHO what's special about the "localhost" name in particular is that 
it's an agnostic / anycast method to say the local host that a given 
program is running on without regard to what the actual host name is.

> 2) By general practice sometime in the deep, dark times 127.0.0.1 was 
> accepted for this purpose. There's nothing special about the address.

Deep, dark times?  It's still used every single day across multiple 
platforms, Linux, Unix, Windows, z/OS, i/OS, you name it.

> 3) I read the original quoted comment in the Kerberos Guide as a warning 
> - 'to make matters worse, __SOME__"

What did the warning mean to you?  Because I took it as "be careful, 
your $OS /may/ do this incorrectly".  Where "this" is putting the FQDN 
on the same line as 127.0.0.1 and / or ::1.

> 4) In my /etc/hosts I do _NOT_ map my machine's name to the same address 
> as localhost, avoiding the Kerberos warning:

ACK

I'm grateful for corroboration, but unfortunately that doesn't speak to 
why the Gentoo handbook suggests what it does.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die