Question (not necessarily related to -amd64)

[Michael Shadle]

Is an /etc/hosts lookup negligible? I'd like to assign "friendly
names" to my servers "i.e. 'mysql' for the mysql server" - right now I
use IPs. But it would make it more portable (as well as make it easier
for my hosting clients to remember) - but if it's going to add a lot
of overhead, then I'd rather not... I know it isn't as "expensive" as
a normal DNS lookup, but it has to be more expensive than just a
straight IP address.

This would mainly be used from PHP scripts, some are accessed hundreds
of times per minute - maybe this information gets cached and I'm
worrying for nothing?

Thanks,
mike

[Stephen Gran]

This one time, at band camp, mike said:

> Is an /etc/hosts lookup negligible? I'd like to assign "friendly
> names" to my servers "i.e. 'mysql' for the mysql server" - right now I
> use IPs. But it would make it more portable (as well as make it easier
> for my hosting clients to remember) - but if it's going to add a lot
> of overhead, then I'd rather not... I know it isn't as "expensive" as
> a normal DNS lookup, but it has to be more expensive than just a
> straight IP address.
>
> This would mainly be used from PHP scripts, some are accessed hundreds
> of times per minute - maybe this information gets cached and I'm
> worrying for nothing?

You'll quickly find when you start doing any debugging that most
programs call gethostbyname() at some point during their execution
anyway, so this is already being done behind the scenes, and you're just
not noticing.  Putting it in /etc/hosts is as cheap as it gets, besides
nscd (when that's not crashing).

HTH,
--
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|   ,''`.                                            Stephen Gran |
|  : :' :                                        sgran@... |
|  `. `'                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
|    `-                                     http://www.debian.org |
 -----------------------------------------------------------------

[Stephen Gran]

This one time, at band camp, mike said:
> Is an /etc/hosts lookup negligible?

And please turn off your autoresponder for mailing list traffic.

Thanks,
--
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
|   ,''`.                                            Stephen Gran |
|  : :' :                                        sgran@... |
|  `. `'                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
|    `-                                     http://www.debian.org |
 -----------------------------------------------------------------

[Michael Shadle]

this was directed at that one guy with the out of office message, right?

i shouldn't have any sort of responders...

On 12/5/05, Stephen Gran <sgran@...> wrote:

> This one time, at band camp, mike said:
> > Is an /etc/hosts lookup negligible?
>
> And please turn off your autoresponder for mailing list traffic.
>
> Thanks,
> --
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------
> |   ,''`.                                            Stephen Gran |
> |  : :' :                                        sgran@... |
> |  `. `'                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
> |    `-                                     http://www.debian.org |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
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[Stephen Gran]

This one time, at band camp, mike said:
> this was directed at that one guy with the out of office message, right?
>
> i shouldn't have any sort of responders...

Yes, sorry - I should have been clearer.

It was meant as a pointer to netiquette, not criticism, and it wasn't
directed at you.
--
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
|   ,''`.                                            Stephen Gran |
|  : :' :                                        sgran@... |
|  `. `'                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
|    `-                                     http://www.debian.org |
 -----------------------------------------------------------------

[Michael Shadle]

That's what I thought :) No hard feelings here.

On 12/5/05, Stephen Gran <sgran@...> wrote:

> This one time, at band camp, mike said:
> > this was directed at that one guy with the out of office message, right?
> >
> > i shouldn't have any sort of responders...
>
> Yes, sorry - I should have been clearer.
>
> It was meant as a pointer to netiquette, not criticism, and it wasn't
> directed at you.
> --
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------
> |   ,''`.                                            Stephen Gran |
> |  : :' :                                        sgran@... |
> |  `. `'                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
> |    `-                                     http://www.debian.org |
>  -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
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>