ordered by their metric. This assigns a stable hostname to the
current gateway, useful for referencing it independently of the
current network configuration state.</para></listitem>
+
+ <listitem><para>The hostname <literal>_outbound</literal> is resolved to the local IPv4 and IPv6
+ addresses that are most likely used for communication with other hosts. This is determined by
+ requesting a routing decision to the configured default gateways from the kernel and then using the
+ local IP addresses selected by this decision. This hostname is only available if there is at least one
+ local default gateway configured. This assigns a stable hostname to the local outbound IP addresses,
+ useful for referencing them independently of the current network configuration state.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Various software relies on an always-resolvable local
<listitem><para>Takes a boolean parameter; used in conjunction with <command>query</command>. If true
(the default), select domains are resolved on the local system, among them
- <literal>localhost</literal> and <literal>_gateway</literal> or entries from
- <filename>/etc/hosts</filename>. If false these domains are not resolved locally, and either fail (in
- case of <literal>localhost</literal> or <literal>_gateway</literal> and suchlike) or go to the
- network via regular DNS/mDNS/LLMNR lookups (in case of <filename>/etc/hosts</filename>
- entries).</para></listitem>
+ <literal>localhost</literal>, <literal>_gateway</literal> and <literal>_outbound</literal>, or
+ entries from <filename>/etc/hosts</filename>. If false these domains are not resolved locally, and
+ either fail (in case of <literal>localhost</literal>, <literal>_gateway</literal> or
+ <literal>_outbound</literal> and suchlike) or go to the network via regular DNS/mDNS/LLMNR lookups
+ (in case of <filename>/etc/hosts</filename> entries).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
gateway addresses, ordered by their metric. This assigns a stable hostname to the current gateway,
useful for referencing it independently of the current network configuration state.</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>The hostname <literal>_outbound</literal> is resolved to the local IPv4 and IPv6
+ addresses that are most likely used for communication with other hosts. This is determined by
+ requesting a routing decision to the configured default gateways from the kernel and then using the
+ local IP addresses selected by this decision. This hostname is only available if there is at least one
+ local default gateway configured. This assigns a stable hostname to the local outbound IP addresses,
+ useful for referencing them independently of the current network configuration state.</para></listitem>
+
<listitem><para>The mappings defined in <filename>/etc/hosts</filename> are resolved to their
configured addresses and back, but they will not affect lookups for non-address types (like MX).
Support for <filename>/etc/hosts</filename> may be disabled with <varname>ReadEtcHosts=no</varname>,