Using a hosts file

Typically, HCP is included as a subdomain in your DNS. If this is not the case, for access to the system, you need to use the tenant domain name in the URL and use a hosts file to define mappings of one or more node IP addresses to that domain name.

The location of the hosts file depends on the client operating system:

• On Windows, by default: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
• On Unix: /etc/hosts
• On Mac OS^® X: /private/etc/hosts

Hostname mappings

Each entry in a hosts file is a mapping of an IP address to a hostname. For an HCP tenant, the hostname must be the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the tenant.

Each hosts file entry you create for access to a tenant must include:

• An IP address of a node in the HCP system
• The FQDN of the tenant domain

For example, if the tenant domain name is finance.hcp.example.com and one of the HCP nodes has the IPv4 address 192.168.210.16 and the IPv6 address 2001:0db8::101, you could add either or both of these lines to the hosts file on the client:

192.168.210.16   finance.hcp.example.com
2001:0db8::101   finance.hcp.example.com

You can include comments in a hosts file either on separate lines or following a mapping on the same line. Each comment must start with a number sign (#). Blank lines are ignored.

Hostname mapping considerations

In the hosts file, you can map IP addresses for any number of nodes to a single domain name. The way a client uses multiple IP address mappings for a single domain name depends on the client platform. For information about how your client handles hosts file entries that define multiple IP address mappings for a single domain name, see your client documentation.

If any of the HCP nodes listed in the hosts file are unavailable, timeouts may occur when you use a hosts file to access the system through the management API.