Are asterisks in /etc/hosts supposed to have any effect?

Question

I have something like this in /etc/hosts:

192.168.0.1 example.com

192.168.0.1 *.example.com

example.com is pinged to 192.168.0.1 as expected but pinging say sub.example.com outputs:

unknown host sub.example.com

@cdhowie Yes, just now. man hosts | grep '\(aster\|\*\)' outputs nothing useful. — Desmond Hume, Nov 19, 2012 at 18:02
That's because the feature you're looking for doesn't exist. :) (At least not without running your own DNS server.) — cdhowie, Nov 19, 2012 at 18:09

Ed Heal · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-19 18:02:00Z

3

You have answered your own question!

The /etc/hosts file is a one-to-one mapping between a hostname (not a collection of them) to a particular IP address.

Consider putting this into /etc/hosts file

127.0.0.1 *.com

answered Nov 19, 2012 at 18:02

Ed Heal

1671 silver badge7 bronze badges

Not sure if I answered my own question which actually was more about how to map all subdomains of a domain to an IP address, not a TLD to an IP.
– Desmond Hume
Nov 19, 2012 at 18:07
@DesmondHume - One works and the other does not.
– Ed Heal
Nov 19, 2012 at 18:11

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