Looking Up the Name and Number in the Phone Book (Host Table)

Looking Up the Name and Number in the Phone Book (Host Table)

If you need to call someone and you know the person's name but not the phone number, you can just look up the information in the phone book. It's simple, easy, and convenient. However, it only works if the phone book that you have happens to have that person's name and number in it.

TCP/IP hosts can have the equivalent of a phone book sitting in a file. The local host file contains a list of TCP/IP host computer names and their corresponding IP addresses. That host computer just needs to look at the local host file for the name and read the address next to it. Figure 13-1 shows the basic process.