Quite right. localhost is just a name. It's also a convention that administrators rely upon.. any number of names can be pointed to the same IP address in /etc/hosts, as I've already illustrated (weakly) in this thread. Mark, you're not retarded, stupid or newbie. Stop insulting yourself. ps. Do you still play bass for that Nelson guy? Justin Krejci wrote: >It doesn't really matter what you call them, though localhost probably is not >the best name to use and you should have every machine with their own name. >The reason it does not matter what names you use is beacuse you are on your >own private network behind a NAT'ing router. > >On Wednesday 30 March 2005 09:01 pm, Mark Browne wrote: > > >>When I set up my linux boxen I have been leaving the domain name as >>localhost. My ISP is Comcast.net and I don't have my own domain name to >>plug in. >> >>I know that this is sort of retarded, but I have no clue about the correct >>thing to do here. >> >>If it makes any difference, I want to network (samba?) my Mandrake-Sun >>Sparc, Mandrake Intel, OS X Mac, AMD-64 XP, and Intel XP boxen together >>later. >> >> >> >>A pointer to a good how-to would be nice. >> >> >> >>Mark Browne >> >> > > >