While setting up a local named as a cache I came across some strange behaviour in name lookups. It doesn't seem to consult the hosts file. I have setup named as authorative for a domain called "home" under which I have configured A records for my home network. It is also authorative for reverse lookups of 192.168.1.* and 127.0.0.*. I have set the "forward only" option and configured the "forwarders" option to the list of IP addresses for my ISPs DNS servers. The idea is that all queries for my local network will be satisfied from the zone files, however anything else will be forwarded to my ISPs DNS. All this works as expected. However to add a second wrinkle, I use ppp in -auto module to demand dial as needed. However I block DNS queries from causing a connection (otherwise sendmail would be costing me heaps in phone calls). With this in place I can telnet to an IP address and the link comes up. If I telnet to a hostname the IP address is never resolved (DNS queries are blocked remember) and the link doesn't come up. To get around this I decided to add the few hostnames, that I actually telnet to, to my /etc/hosts file. It doesn't seem to have any effect. Even though /etc/hosts has an IP address for the hostname I specify on the commandline to telnet, it still wants to do a DNS query. Yes my /etc/host.conf file lists the hosts file as first preference and bind as second preference. My /etc/resolv.conf is: domain home options no_tld_query nameserver 127.0.0.1 The /etc/hosts entry is like the following (IP changed) 192.168.2.1 host.domain.com.au host It doesn't matter if I use host or host.domain.com.au on the command line to telnet, the hosts file never returns a match and the DNS is queried. P.S. At some point the hosts file as gone from entries like the following 192.168.2.1 host.domain.com.au host 192.168.2.1 host.domain.com.au. ..to just a single entry without the '.' terminated line. I believe that it worked as I expect in early 3.x versions. Thanks. -- +------------------------------------------------------------+ . | John Saunders - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (EMail) | ,--_|\ | - http://www.nlc.net.au/ (WWW) | / Oz \ | - 02-9489-4932 or 041-822-3814 (Phone) | \_,--\_/ | NORTHLINK COMMUNICATIONS P/L - Supplying a professional, | v | and above all friendly, internet connection service. | +------------------------------------------------------------+ To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message