B<makehosts> updates the /etc/hosts file based on information stored in the
xCAT database object definitions.
The main three bits of information needed are: node hostname, node ip and network domain name.
The hostname and ip address are specified as part of the node definition.
The domain value is taken either from the xCAT network definition associated with the node or from the cluster site definition. If you are using multiple domains in the cluster you should add the domain names to the appropriate xCAT network definition.
Note: If your node hostnames and IP addresses follow a regular pattern, you can use just a few regular expressions to generate /etc/hosts using makehosts. For details on using regular expressions see the "xcatdb" man page.
If you specify additional network interfaces in your xCAT node definitions they will also be added to the /etc/hosts file. You can specify additional network interface information (NICs) using the following node attributes: nicips, nichostnamesuffixes, nictypes, niccustomscripts, nicnetworks. You can get a description of these attributes by running "lsdef -t node -h | more" or "man nics".