11 Mar
2021
11 Mar
'21
7:18 p.m.
While this is true wrt the history of FreeBSD/Unix, I'm almost positive
that BSD didn't invent it. I'm pretty sure
it was picked up from the
existing host file that was published by sri-nic.arpa before DNS.
Warner
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