NAME

svcorder − designate the order and selection of services

SYNTAX

/etc/svcorder

DESCRIPTION

The svcorder file designates the order and selection of name services that will be queried to resolve host names and addresses. The queries to the services are made through the gethostent interface.

The svcorder file must exist if your system accesses host names and addresses by database lookup services such as Yellow Pages (YP) or BIND. You do not need the svcorder file if you only have local access, that is, if you are using only the local /etc/hosts file to obtain host name and address information.

The service names are defined in the /usr/include/netdb.h file.

The order in which the service names are placed in the svcorder file indicates the order that they are queried to resolve a given name or address. The following example shows the contents of the svcorder file if YP will be queried first, then BIND, and then the local service, if YP cannot resolve the data:

yp
bind
local

The svcorder file must have an entry for local. Otherwise, your system cannot resolve any queries in the event that the lookup services, other than local, are down.

If you set up a database lookup service such as YP or BIND, be sure that the svcorder file exists. Create the file if it does not. The ypsetup and bindsetup commands do this automatically.

FILES

/etc/hosts
/usr/include/netdb.h
/etc/svcorder

SEE ALSO

gethostent(3n), hosts(5), bindsetup(8), ypsetup(8yp)
Guide to the BIND Service
Guide to the Yellow Pages Service