Dear Managers,
        I received numerous responses.  My apologies for not listing
everyone individually.  They fell into four categories:
1) (Most popular) Edit /etc/svc.conf to include a line like this:
hosts=local,bind,yp  OR  host=local,yp,bind
I already had the first version and the local file was simply being
ignored.  Sigismondo Boschi <net1701_at_iperbole.bologna.it> suggested
that under HP /etc/hosts is ignored if /etc/resolv.conf is present
(and since I am using DNS it obviously is).  At least on my network,
DU (v4.0) appears to be doing the same thing.
        My apologies for not mentioning in the original post that I
had already checked this.
2) Edit /etc/svcorder (an undocumented file).  I didn't know about
this one, but my original installation of DU v4.0 appears to have
given me a correct file anyways:
        \n     (newline for non-C programmers)
        local
        bind
So apparently this file is also ignored.
3) Start my own DNS server.  I don't have the responsibility for our
subdomain and hence can't start a primary server, but I took Gyula
Szokoly's <szgyula_at_skysrv.Pha.Jhu.edu> advice and set up a caching
server using bindsetup.  So far it seems to be working, but I haven't
yet put it to the acid test of cutting it off from our primary DNS
server (because I have active users on the system).  However, it is
currently the ONLY server my client stations are using and everything
seems OK.
4) I received one suggestion to turn off the lookup feature of TCP
wrappers.  For security reasons I don't want to do that and it
wouldn't help with sendmail anyways, although it would cure the telnet
problem.
        Thanks to everyone for the kind help!!!
                                                Larry
============================================================================
Larry Griffith                       Dept. of Computer & Info Science
larry_at_garfield.wsc.mass.edu          Westfield State College
(413) 572-5294                       Westfield, MA 01086 USA
PGP public key available at: 
http://garfield.wsc.mass.edu/dcis/griffith.html
============================================================================
Original post
-------- ----
Dear Managers,
        Because a big snow storm Saturday night and Sunday morning we
temporarily lost power.  My DEC 3000's came back up OK, but the DNS server
(not under my control) was down for 9 1/2 hours.  Services like telnet
and sendmail refused to work even when the hosts involved were listed in
/etc/hosts.  Is there a way to make these services consult /etc/hosts (or an
NIS map) before going out to DNS?  (If it makes a difference, we use TCP
wrappers to control access to telnetd.)
                                                        Larry
Received on Mon Dec 09 1996 - 23:33:51 NZDT