Re: [COFF] [TUHS] Pondering the hosts file

While this is true wrt the history of FreeBSD/Unix, I'm almost positive The CSRG history doesn't seem to have saved the full SCCS history of the hosts manpage, but it must have appeared sometime around the addition of ARP support to 4.1BSD - it's not in the 4.1C sources without ARP, but it is in the sources with it. That version does indeed mention its origins: HOSTS(5) File Formats Manual HOSTS(5) NAME hosts - host name data base DESCRIPTION The hosts file contains information regarding the known hosts on the DARPA Internet. For each host a single line should be present with the following information: official host name Internet address aliases Items are separated by any number of blanks and/or tab characters. A ``#'' indicates the beginning of a comment; characters up to the end of the line are not interpreted by routines which search the file. This file is normally created from the official host data base maintained at the Network Information Control Center (NIC), though local changes may be required to bring it up to date regarding unofficial aliases and/or unknown hosts. Network addresses are specified in the conventional ``.'' notation us- ing the inet_addr() routine from the Internet address manipulation li- brary, inet(3). Host names may contain any printable character other than a field delimiter, newline, or comment character. FILES /etc/hosts SEE ALSO gethostent(3N) BUGS A name server should be used instead of a static file. A binary in- dexed file format should be available for fast access. 15 January 1983 HOSTS(5) -Henry