Tim: >> Is your interface handled by DHCP? It can re-write the hosts file, >> you might want to make your changes while disconnected. antonio montagnani: > Why should a Dynamic address re-write my hosts file??? in this case > blankening it?? > > Any technical reason or is it a bug??? When host file is empty, > logging in not cable connected is extremely long..... That's why I suggested correcting it when the DHCP client hasn't changed it. That way, that should be your default. The DCHP client may change it when it wants to, then revert it afterwards. I can think of one reason why it might do that sort of thing: So that your networking has the addresses it needs to use when there's no local DNS server to provide the answers. I also found DHCP to rewrite my /etc/resolv.conf file, if it wanted to add DNS servers. But it's a long time since I looked into that. -- (This box runs FC7, my others run FC4, FC5 & FC6, in case that's important to the thread.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.