[SLUG] "Correctness" of /etc/hosts (Was: something else entirely)

[Peter Hardy <peterhardy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2002-02-26 at 11:52, Peter Hardy wrote:
> I'm sure somebody's going to give me a good reason why you shouldn't do
> it, but:
> Couldn't you just insert an entry in your hosts file aliasing lonewolf
> to 127.0.0.1?
> Something like:
> 
> 127.0.0.1       fizgig  localhost

That's pulled straight out of my /etc/hosts, and certainly comes in
handy on a laptop that finds itself plugged in to all manner of
networks.

I don't know if it's still there, but for a long time Slackware had this
comment in /etc/hosts, with lots of capital letters and exclamation
marks, to the effect that making the machine name an alias of 127.0.0.1
is a Very Bad Thing.
Apparently it broke some software, like talk.  Haven't had any problems
myself, though (on those few occasions I need talk, I use ytalk ;-)

Opinions?

-- 
Peter
peterhardy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

'At last!' he said. 'My good sir!  This is remarkable!' (Although in
Trob
the last word in fact became 'a thing which may happen but once in the
usable lifetime of a canoe hollowed diligently by axe and fire from the
tallest diamondwood tree that grows in the noted diamondwood forests on
the
lower slopes of Mount Awayawa, home of the firegods or so it is said.')
		   (Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic)