I have the following block in my /etc/hosts
:
# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts
They were inserted by some automagic in Ubuntu and not written by me. I've found lots of documents that say that you should have these lines. But why? Why are they desirable?
My suspicion is that they aren't and are just cruft (except for the first one). Because if you google one of the names, eg ip6-allrouters
, all you find are references to /etc/hosts
but no one is actually using them.
Another way of phrasing this question is, what harm will come unto me or what feature will not function properly if I remove these lines? If the answer is none, can we conclude that they are redundant?