Installing and Managing HP ARPA File Transfer Protocol Network Manager's Guide (36957-90157)

34 Chapter 2

Verify Installation and Update LAN Conﬁguration

To Create or Modify the Hosts File

The host name data base ﬁle, HOSTS.NET.SYS, associates internet

addresses with ofﬁcial host names and aliases. This allows a user to

refer to a host by a symbolic name instead of an internet address.

When using the name server, this ﬁle serves only as a backup when the

server is not running. In this circumstance, it is a common practice that

HOSTS.NET.SYS contains a few addresses of machines on the local

network.

To create the hosts ﬁle, perform the following steps:

1. Copy the sample ﬁle, HOSTSAMP.NET.SYS, to HOSTS.NET.SYS.

2. Modify HOSTS.NET.SYS using any ASCII editor so that it contains

information about the nodes on your network.

To modify an already existing HOSTS.NET.SYS ﬁle, simply use your

editor to update and save the existing ﬁle.

Enter a single line for each host, including the following information:

[internet address] [local host name] [aliases]]

A line cannot start with a space. Items are separated by any number of

blanks and/or tab characters. A pound sign (#) indicates the beginning

of a comment.

Network addresses are speciﬁed in dot format, with leading zeros

omitted and a period between each grouping. (See example addresses in

Figure 2-2.)

Host names can contain any printable character other than a white

space, newline, or comment character.

NOTE It is very important that you omit the leading zeros in the network

addresses. If you enter the leading zeros here, the domain name

resolver will interpret the numbers as octal numbers.