Partial HOSTS file read

Question

I've a new entry that I put in the HOSTS file:

10.7.4.94 COMMRTU7 commrtu7 commRTU7

The first two entries ping, but the third one won't ping. I have a list of entries like this that work fine, any ideas why this won't?

Answer 1

make your entry just:

10.7.4.94 commrtu7

and then try to ping all three

ping COMMRTU7 
ping commrtu7 
ping commRTU7

They are all the same.

Answer 2

Thank you to the answerers who gave me good information.

The problem turned out to be that there was a '^M' after the line (right after the entry in question), that didn't show when you CATed a file, but you could see in VI. After removing the '^M' it worked as normal.

The reason it came out wrong was that I edited the HOSTS file on Windows in Notepad. The way to do it right is to use a Unix editor, or use TextPad on Windows and Save to a UNIX file format.

Answer 3

I have no idea why it doesn't work, I am actually surprised that it appears to be case sensitive, even though RFC 952 dictates otherwise. Are you sure that the tru64 implementation is case sensitive to begin with?