peregier@vlsi.waterloo.edu (Phil Regier) (09/22/89)
On many machines there is a directory called /usr/hosts which is intended to contain files for each of the hosts on the network. These files have the same name as the machine and are symbolic links to /usr/ucb/rsh. There is often a MAKEHOSTS file to generate this structure from the /etc/hosts file. I have seen this directory in BSD4.3, UMIPS 4.0 and SUN OS4.0. What is the purpose of this directory? Is it just there so that users can put it in their path and thus be able to use the machine name as an alias for rsh/rlogin commands or is it used by some program(s)? Thanks in advance for any answers. I have checked manuals but cannot find any info.
jmsellens@watdragon.waterloo.edu (John M. Sellens) (09/24/89)
In article <33@vlsi.waterloo.edu> peregier@vlsi.waterloo.edu (Phil Regier) writes: >Is it just >there so that users can put it in their path and thus be able to use >the machine name as an alias for rsh/rlogin commands I think that's the only reason. Kind of silly when you have a large number of hosts around: % decomment </etc/hosts | wc -l 550 I've always felt that if a user finds % rsh machine that much harder to type than % machine then the best thing is for them to make aliases for their favorite machines.