I was being facetious - I wasn't actually asking a question.
And, DNS isn't for assigning IP addresses, dynamically or any other way. That's DHCP's job. DNS is a way of associating names with IP addresses.
Right. I was thinking of DHCP. Senior moment.
If one were to stuff a box's eth0 IP address in its hosts file, what purpose would it serve? If you then change the IP address you then also have to remember to change the hosts entry.
My earlier comment stands, if you substitute DHCP for DNS. The hosts file is for (more-or less) permanently-assigned addresses. Yes, it's unneeded for dynamic (DHCP-assigned) addresses.
The hosts file is useful only if you don't have access to DNS, and only then for addresses that are foreign to the box itself. The hosts file is largely a pre DNS relic.
Well, pre-DNS, for sure, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a relic. It's just the ticket for those addresses that are nailed down. Many admins like to do that for some or all of their local machines. (Your own /etc/host.conf file still includes something like "order hosts bind," doesn't it?)
