127.0.1.1 in /etc/hosts

[Stuart McGraw]

On 11/27/2017 07:01 PM, Oliver Grawert wrote:
> hi,
> Am Montag, den 27.11.2017, 15:47 -0700 schrieb Stuart McGraw:
>> What is the meaning of the line:
>>
>>   127.0.1.1  mymachine.xxx  mymachine
>>
>> in my /etc/hosts file?  It was put in there by a Xubuntu-17.10
>> install (or to be more accurate, an Ubuntu server-17,10 + Xubuntu
>> package install.)  I am installing some backup software (bacula) 
>> which for reasons I haven't delved into, dislikes (as in breaks) 
>> when it resolves "mymachine"s address and ends up with 127.0.0.1 
>> which is what happens when the above line is present in /etc/hosts.  
>>
>> Will I break something else if I remove or replace the line 
>> with the machine's "real" ip address which keeps bacula happy, 
>> eg:
>>
>>   10.10.200.85  mymachine.xxx  mymachine
>>
>> ?  Thanks...
>>
> see https://askubuntu.com/questions/754213/what-is-difference-between-l
> ocalhost-address-127-0-0-1-and-127-0-1-1
> 
> which has the right pointer to a quote from the debian reference manual
> on this topic ... it is a placeholder IP to make sure some low level
> network features still work even if you are physically offline.
> 
> ciao
> 	oli

That link was very helpful.  I am in fact concerned with maintaining 
what connectivity I can even in the face of some machines or devices 
being down (happens fairly frequently here) so it's something I need to 
pay attention to.  But perhaps manually changing the hosts file in the 
event of an outage might be good enough...  At least I know what I need
to think about.

Thanks.