FS#35397 - [filesystem] hosts file no longer needed

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by ifaigios (ifaigios) - Tuesday, 21 May 2013, 11:56 GMT
Last edited by Dave Reisner (falconindy) - Tuesday, 21 May 2013, 13:49 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Packages: Core
Status Closed
Assigned To Dave Reisner (falconindy)
Tom Gundersen (tomegun)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 1
Private No

Details

From the changelog of systemd-203:

* nss-myhostname will now also resolve "localhost"
implicitly. This makes /etc/hosts an optional file and
nicely handles that on IPv6 ::1 maps to both "localhost" and
the local hostname.

This means that the hosts file no longer needs to be shipped in new installations but instead could be strictly optional. Removing it from the filesystem package allows to get rid of an additional configuration file.
This task depends upon

Closed by  Dave Reisner (falconindy)
Tuesday, 21 May 2013, 13:49 GMT
Reason for closing:  Won't implement
Additional comments about closing:  No benefit, potentially problematic.
Comment by Dave Reisner (falconindy) - Tuesday, 21 May 2013, 12:55 GMT
I see no compelling reason to get rid of this. nss-myhostname is still our fallback when the hosts files doesn't exist (notice that 'files' is the first priority in nsswitch.conf). Getting rid of this file only to potentially bring it back under package manage control somewhere in the future is potentially painful.

Lack of a hosts file may cause programs to misbehave, and in strange ways -- apache is one of them, I'm sure there's others.

Big -1 from me.
Comment by Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi (djgera) - Tuesday, 21 May 2013, 13:39 GMT
-1, nss-myhostname "fallback trick" does not work nice when your "internet" connection fails. Personally I disable it.

See https://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2012-October/023904.html

Loading...