man1/getent.1 currently includes: """ When one or more key arguments are provided, pass each key to gethostbyaddr(3) or gethostbyname2(3), depending on whether a call to inet_pton(3) indicates that the key is an IPv6 or IPv4 address or not, and display the result. """ Please append the following clarification: """ For symbolic hostnames, getent hosts always tries an AF_INET6 lookup first, even when the system is not otherwise configured to use IPv6. """ The reason is to explain to the user why AAAA DNS queries appear as a result of running "getent hosts example.com" on an IPv4-only system. The code is here if you'd like to confirm: https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob;f=nss/getent.c#l294 Thanks, Phil
