In /etc/nsswitch.conf I have the default hosts: files nisplus dns However, for hosts that have both DNS and /etc/hosts entry, the DNS entry is used and only in a host is not known to DNS, the /etc/hosts entry will be used. This might have secutiry implications is certain cases, so setting "Severity: security".
Can you attach a strace output of such program plus what exactly do you have in /etc/hosts? Works just fine for me.
I no longer can reproduce it, sorry.