/etc/hosts

Assess

Techniques

A local hostname resolution file used to override DNS lookups on Unix-like systems.

Why it's here

Placed in Assess: 1 article(s) of evidence from 1 source(s), led by open-source activity, with 1 in the last 30 days. Confidence 24%. Low accumulated evidence, so it defaults conservatively pending more signal.

Evidence (1)

3Hacker News·10/6/2026open_source
Reviving iChat audio and video calls on old Macs
A technical write-up shows how iChat AV on older Mac OS X systems can be made to work again for peer-to-peer audio and video calls by overriding Apple's configuration lookup. The method relies on pointing configuration.apple.com to a custom server and using hosts-file and NAT source-port preservation settings so iChat can discover public addresses correctly.