On Thu, 13 May 1999, Allen Briggs wrote:

> > >hosts:          files dns
> > 
> > mine says hosts:	dns	files
> > is the difference significant???
> 
> Only in that yours will check BIND before /etc/hosts.  If you want to

Yep!

> override the name server or have /etc/hosts entries that are not in DNS,
> then you'll probably get a failure (I don't recall off-hand under which
> conditions it will fail over to files--perhaps only if DNS isn't
> available--see 'man nsswitch.conf' for how you can tweak this).

No, the above configuration will search files after a dns failure.
Something like:

hosts:	dns [NOTFOUND=return] files

would only look in files if dns wasn't around.

Note: I copied this from a sun, I'm not sure if it's NOTFOUND or notfound,
etc. But you do have to add something to get it to not check files after a
dns failure.

Take care,

Bill