"Chatty" config files in /etc

[Helge Oldach]

David O'Brien:
>On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 01:53:52PM +0400, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
>> additional read(2) syscalls and parsing.  I'd replace the
>> default /etc/hosts with:
>> 
>> 127.0.0.1	localhost
>> ::1		localhost
>
>Noting the RFC 1918 addresses in the default /etc/hosts is *very* useful.
>If we (part of the Inetnet community) wants to encourage proper IP use,
>we shouldn't hide this information in an obscure, seldom (?never?)
>visited directory.

And so is noting actual IP address(es) and host name(s) in /etc/hosts,
to overcome lack of network connectivity or reachability of a proper DNS
server during boot. Specifically if the server in question *is* the name
server.

Actually, /etc/hosts is very likely touched by the sysadmin on most
machines. Definitely on all that I take care of.

And for that reason it would be a good idea to keep documentation in
that file as well rather than sorting it away elsewhere.

Regards,
Helge