/etc/hosts file doesnt forward to localhost for subdomain begins with www

Question

On my desktop I use /etc/hosts file like as below for developing purpose

127.0.0.1   a.example.com
127.0.0.1   www.a.example.com
127.0.0.1   adsense.a.example.com
127.0.0.1   foto.a.example.com

They all work except www.a.example.com it doesn't forward to localhost. Could you explain why? and any workaround?

I use Ubuntu 10.10. Thanks

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 22 '11 at 15:25

0

What do you mean with "They work"? Where? In a browser? On the console?

What is the output of

host www.a.example.com

or

dig www.a.example.com

on the console?

answered Feb 22 '11 at 15:25

rems

when I ping it doesnt route to 127.0.0.1 – Gok Demir Feb 22 '11 at 15:29
Where to then? Which IP address? Or what error do you get? – rems Feb 22 '11 at 15:37
Are you sure you don't have a syntax error in /etc/hosts? ping should work! – rems Feb 22 '11 at 15:38
I rewrote and it worked. Although I havent seen any difference it worked. probably I wrote wrong. – Gok Demir Feb 22 '11 at 15:44

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '11 at 15:44

Some theories:

The www.a.example.com record is seperated by tabs as opposes to spaces for the rest, or visa-versa. In theory, the host file should accept either tabs or spaces, but ubuntu might be picky.
Something else in your host file is taking precedence over www.a.example.com. Is there an entry for *.a.example.com
Does www.a.example.com contain any unicode characters? If you display it with cat, less or more on a terminal doe it look funny?

2 Answers2