####> This option file is used in:
####>   podman build, create, farm build, pod create, run
####> If file is edited, make sure the changes
####> are applicable to all of those.
#### **--add-host**=*hostname[;hostname[;...]]*:*ip*

Add a custom host-to-IP mapping to the <<container|pod>>'s `/etc/hosts` file.

The option takes one or multiple semicolon-separated hostnames to be mapped to
a single IPv4 or IPv6 address, separated by a colon. It can also be used to
overwrite the IP addresses of hostnames Podman adds to `/etc/hosts` by default
(also see the **--name** and **--hostname** options). This option can be
specified multiple times to add additional mappings to `/etc/hosts`. It
conflicts with the **--no-hosts** option and conflicts with *no_hosts=true* in
`containers.conf`.

Instead of an IP address, the special flag *host-gateway* can be given. This
resolves to an IP address the container can use to connect to the host. The
IP address chosen depends on your network setup, thus there's no guarantee that
Podman can determine the *host-gateway* address automatically, which will then
cause Podman to fail with an error message. You can overwrite this IP address
using the *host_containers_internal_ip* option in *containers.conf*.

The *host-gateway* address is also used by Podman to automatically add the
`host.containers.internal` and `host.docker.internal` hostnames to `/etc/hosts`.
You can prevent that by either giving the **--no-hosts** option, or by setting
*host_containers_internal_ip="none"* in *containers.conf*. If no *host-gateway*
address was configured manually and Podman fails to determine the IP address
automatically, Podman will silently skip adding these internal hostnames to
`/etc/hosts`. If Podman is running in a virtual machine using `podman machine`
(this includes Mac and Windows hosts), Podman will silently skip adding the
internal hostnames to `/etc/hosts`, unless an IP address was configured
manually; the internal hostnames are resolved by the gvproxy DNS resolver
instead.

Podman will use the `/etc/hosts` file of the host as a basis by default, i.e.
any hostname present in this file will also be present in the `/etc/hosts` file
of the container. A different base file can be configured using the
*base_hosts_file* config in `containers.conf`.