Windows hosts file and host name with dot

Question

This is my hosts file (c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc)

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

127.0.0.1       localhost

x.x.x.x     my.hostname1
#x.x.x.x        my.hostname2

x.x.x.x is my actual IP. I'm running a Tomcat 6.0 server on 127.0.0.1:80 with Windows XP (please don't blame me, not my machine). So, if I open localhost or x.x.x.x, i can see the error message of Tomcat (but that's ok, cause I've not put any project name in the URL).

If I open my.hostname1, a network error page is displayer. If I replace in my hosts file my.hostname1 with my-hostname1, the behavior is the same of localhost or x.x.x.x, so I think the problem is the dot (.) character in the host name. Is there a way to include a dot in my hostname?

Thank you

EDIT: The ouput of running on cmd ping my.hostname1

Pinging my.hostname1[x.x.x.x] with 32 bytes of data:



Reply from x.x.x.x: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Reply from x.x.x.x: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Reply from x.x.x.x: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Reply from x.x.x.x: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128



Ping statistics for x.x.x.x:

    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

   Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

Answer 1

I find out it was a proxy problem, now I added an exception to my internet options, exaclty 'local*', and everything works.

Answer 2

Host names cant have "." inside them. Dots are used as separators for domain names. You can use something like myhostname.domain , where domain is your domain, or just myhostname.

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_qualified_domain_name