DNS HOWTO : A resolving, caching name server. : Resolvers
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3.2. Resolvers

All OSes implementing the standard C API has the calls gethostbyname and gethostbyaddr. These can get information from several different sources. Which sources it gets it from is configured in /etc/nsswitch.conf on FreeBD (and some other Unixes). This is a long file specifying from which file or database to get different kinds of data types. It usually contains helpful comments at the top, which you should consider reading. After that find the line starting with `hosts:'; it should read:


hosts:      files dns

(You remembered about the leading spaces, right? I won't mention them again.)

If there is no line starting with `hosts:' then put in the one above. It says that programs should first look in the /etc/hosts file, then check DNS according to resolv.conf.


DNS HOWTO : A resolving, caching name server. : Resolvers
Previous: Starting named
Next: Congratulations