HP SNMP/XL User's Guide (36922-90036)

26 Chapter2
Configuring HP SNMP/XL
The HOSTS File
The HOSTS File
The SNMP/XL agent uses the Name Service Routines to resolve node
names into IP addresses. These routines are used for node names that
appear in the SNMPCONF file and node names that are specified in the
snmp commands (for example, SNMPGET, SNMPNEXT, SNMPSET, SNMPTRAP,
and SNMPWALK).
The Name Service Routines use the following two methods of resolving
node names into IP addresses:
1. The file RESLVCNF.NET.SYS is checked to determine if a node in the
network is acting as the domain name server. If a node is listed in
this file, a domain name request is sent to that node to resolve the
name into an IP address. If the request fails or the file does not exist,
the following method is used.
2. The host database, located in the file HOSTS.NET.SYS is checked.
This flat-ascii file contains entries for all of the hosts in the company
network. An example of an entry is:
192.1.27.63 mpenode mpenode.cup.hp.com
When this method is used, the Name Service Routine sequentially
searches the host database for the node name, and if found, returns
the proper IP address.
If both methods fail, the subsystem is not able to generate an IP
address for the node name.