Yes - see manpage for hosts: $ man hosts DESCRIPTION The hosts file contains information regarding the known hosts on the network. For each host *a single line* should be present with the following information: Internet address Official host name Aliases On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 7:45 AM, Niall Litchfield <niall.litchfield@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Does anyone here know if the habit of various oracle products to require the > hosts file format to be in the form > XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX HOSTNAME.DOMAINNAME HOSTNAME <any aliases> > > reflects an industry standard anywhere. I've come across a large number of > systems now where you find lines like > > XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX HOSTNAME HOSTNAME.DOMAINNAME <any aliases> > or > XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX HOSTNAME.DOMAINNAME HOSTNAME > XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX <alias1> > XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX <alias2> > > and so on. > > RFC 952 (which admittedly dates from when I was still in full time > education!) doesn't seem to specify the format oracle seems to > prefer/require or even one line per ip address (though that seems sensible > to me). -- Regards, Greg Rahn http://structureddata.org -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l