line lengths in /etc/hosts

[Walter Hurry]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:57:48 -0700, Perry Hutchison wrote:

> Is there a limit on line length in FreeBSD's /etc/hosts?
> 
> I'm not finding any mention of such a limit in hosts(5), but characters
> beyond the first 660 or so seem to be ignored.
> 
> To answer the inevitable followup "why would anyone need such a long
> line in /etc/hosts":
> 
> With this line in /etc/nsswitch.conf
> 
>   hosts: files dns
> 
> I can easily suppress access to unwanted web sites by adding names to
> the localhost line in /etc/hosts, like this:
> 
>   127.0.0.1	localhost localhost.my.domain bad1.com bad2.com ...
> 
> My version of that line has gotten rather long :)

$ tail -20 /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1  r1.zedo.com
127.0.0.1  simg.zedo.com
127.0.0.1  ss1.zedo.com
127.0.0.1  ss2.zedo.com
127.0.0.1  ss7.zedo.com
127.0.0.1  xads.zedo.com
127.0.0.1  yads.zedo.com
127.0.0.1  www.zedo.com #[Adware.RaxSearch]
127.0.0.1  c1.zxxds.net #[g1.panthercdn.com]
127.0.0.1  c7.zxxds.net
# [Zero Lag][AS20093][67.201.0.0 - 67.201.63.255]
127.0.0.1  ads.namiflow.com
127.0.0.1  adunit.namiflow.com
# [Zero Lag][AS20093][68.71.240.0 - 68.71.255.255]
127.0.0.1  rt.udmserve.net
# [Zero Lag][AS20093][72.37.216.0 - 72.37.217.255]
127.0.0.1  www.stickylogic.com
127.0.0.1  www.winadiscount.com #[Dr.Web.Adware.Xbarre]
127.0.0.1  www.winaproduct.com
# [end of entries generated by MVPS HOSTS]
$