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Shaakunthala
Asked: 2013-06-21 04:13:29 +0800 CST

Is it possible to have round-robin DNS with /etc/hosts file?

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Is it possible to have round-robin DNS with the follwing configuration in /etc/hosts?

192.168.4.10 shaakunthala.local
192.168.4.20 shaakunthala.local

I'm on Linux.

hosts-file

2 Answers

  1. dnsmasq inludes Round-robin DNS out-of-the-box

    > egrep -m1 '^nameserver' /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 127.0.0.1
> grep -i rrtest /etc/hosts
1.1.1.1 rrtest
2.2.2.2 rrtest
> /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart 
Shutting down dnsmasq:                                     [  OK  ]
Starting dnsmasq:                                          [  OK  ]
> nslookup rrtest 
Server:         127.0.0.1
Address:        127.0.0.1#53

Name:   rrtest
Address: 2.2.2.2
Name:   rrtest
Address: 1.1.1.1

> nslookup rrtest 
Server:         127.0.0.1
Address:        127.0.0.1#53

Name:   rrtest
Address: 1.1.1.1
Name:   rrtest
Address: 2.2.2.2
    • 10

  2. No, that doesn't work.

    Also /etc/hosts is a primitive form of name->address mapping that DNS is meant to replace. If you want round-robin DNS, install a DNS server.

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