Do I need a hosts file?

If you are experiencing problems connecting a client machine (workstation) to the FTGate machine, it is likely you will need to add a hosts file to the Windows folder on the client machine (workstation).

 

The hosts file is used to allow the operating system to identify the various machines on a Peer–to–Peer network or one with a server but not using either DNS, Wins or DHCP to resolve machine name/IP numbers.

Format of the hosts file

This should be a file with only the IP numbers and machine names of the required machines on the network, i.e. do not list all machines, just those which the other machines need to access. Entries may include:

 

 

Or the LAN name of the FTGate machine. So if the FTGate machine is called "mailhost" (no quotes) and has an IP number of 192.168.0.1 then the entry would look this:

 

192.168.0.1 Mailhost  #comments can be added here after a ‘#’

 

Notice the space between the IP number and the machine name. This MUST be at least one space, our recommendation is to use a ‘tab space’ to ensure there is a distinct space, although one space is sufficient.

Location of the hosts file

 

On a Windows 95/98 machine, the hosts file must be saved/copied to the Windows folder.

ON a Windows NT machine the file should be called lmhosts and saved to the winnt\system32\drivers\etc folder.

File name of the hosts file

 

The name of the file is crucial, it MUST be called hosts, with NO extension. For best results use the MS DOS text editor ‘edit.com’. this can be run from the Start menu using the following command:

 

Click on Start button, then click Run, type edit or edit.com and press Enter or click OK.

 

There is also a hosts.sam file in the Windows folder on a Win 95/98 machine. The lmhosts.sam file is in the winnt\system32\drivers\etc folder on an NT machine.