why should i have to modify the /etc/nsswittch.conf file?

[Kaw Ay]

I am running opensolaris as a virtual machine using virtualbox on a windows vista host. based on this setup, even if the networking works completely 100% ok i would be unable to ping anything other than the host machine due to the way that virtualbox handles networking in NAT mode (i only mention this as a reason why i do host lookups and not ping anything below)

after installing opensolaris i noticed that i was unable to browse to google.com in firefox or resolve google.com through a host lookup (ie the following command would just time out)
host google.com

I disabled nwam and activated manual networking by:
svcadm disable svc:/network/physical:nwam
svcadm enable svc:/network/physical:default 

i configured my ISPs primary/secondary DNS servers by making the appropriate entries in /etc/resolv.conf

at this point i was still unable to browse to google.com in firefox but i could resolve the IP for google.com through a host lookup.

i then editted /etc/nsswitch.conf and modified the following line:
hosts:       files
to this:
hosts:       files dns

after this i could browse to google.com in firefox and resolve it via a host lookup


what i dont understand is:
why should i have to modify the /etc/nsswittch.conf file?
 
 
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