Small scale Virtual Hosting.

[spider666]

Some advice please. I am very new to Linux after being with W*n&%ws for longer than I care to remember. I am not new to virtual hosting done with Apache as I have been doing this for a while now on Win2K servers.

My question is, do I have to run a DNS server or not?

Being as this is a stand-alone server (apart from Samba shares to windows) couldn't I just use the etc/hosts file. The machine has a fixed IP and all of the virtual domains are fully qualified and registered at EVERYDNS.NET with entries for their location and mail servers etc all pointed to the fixed IP. DNS seems a lot of trouble to go to for something that is already known about elsewhere.

[bradthemad]

do I have to run a DNS server or not?

If the domains are already working by means of their registered nameservers, then no, you don't need to run a DNS server yourself just to be able to serve them up with Apache.

couldn't I just use the etc/hosts file.

Use it for what?