hi all,
Is there any way to bypass /etc/hosts file for IP address and hostname mapping ??
I need the hostlookups to be read from file which is in my userspace.

I think there should be some way out for doing this.. I searched a lot but unable to find it yet..

Thanks in advance.

You could create a hosts file in your home directory, remove the /etc/hosts file and create a symbolic link from /etc/hosts to your new hosts file.

However, that is a security risk, since anyone who compromized your user account could then redirect URLS to different sites. This can result in merely annoying things like typing "www.google.com" in the address bar and receiving the yahoo.com site, but it could also be used to phish your online banking information by replacing the url of your bank wioth some spoofing site.

What do you want that for, anyway? I'm sure there's a more secure way to achieve what you want.

Bypassing /etc/hosts is easy: try modifying /etc/host.conf and remove the "hosts" entry.
If you want to use your own file, see Lotharster's post. But I agree that it isn't very secure.

Why bother with all the symlinks and crap? Just make /etc/host writable by your user (via ACLs or group permissions)