Pointing my local /etc/hosts domains to an ip

Question

I'm testing a new server and have been playing with /etc/hosts.

I have been able to get it working on just domain.com, but if I try www.domain.com it points to where the actual domain is currently delegated, not the testing server.

ie

xxx.xx.xx.xx domain.com

If I load domain.com, I get the ip address I enter. With this though I enter www.domain.com I get where the domain is currently hosted.

if I try:

xxx.xx.xx.xx www.domain.com

I still end up with where the domain is currently hosted and not the test server.

What am I missing here?

Answer 1

xxx.xx.xx.xx www.domain.com should have worked, assuming that you have configured your resolver to first use the hosts file. (Trying DNS next and the host file as a backup is also allowed and might be the default on some distributions).

I checked FreeBSD and Fedora and both have default lines like this:

>cat /etc/host.conf
# Auto-generated from nsswitch.conf
hosts
dns

Fedora

order host, bind

Edit: I just saw your comment that you use OS X. That makes this post relevant

Answer 2

Your setup of /etc/hosts file is good.

Look in the file /etc/nsswitch.conf, and check if the first parameter of line beginning with "host: " is "files". If not it's a priority probleme between /etc/hosts file and DNS recursion (dns parameter).