Please help with sendmail problem

[Bill Horne]

Thanks for reading this: I'm having a problem with sendmail and need help.

I've got an entry in my /etc/hosts file for a machine on my home network, e.g.,

10.50.50.72   union.ne.mediaone.net

Also, in the /etc/hosts.conf file, the entry is "order hosts,bind".

However, sendmail, when trying to deliver mail to a user on union.ne.mediaone.net, is doing a dns lookup *before* checking the hosts file, and is obtaining ancorrect address that has not yet aged off mediaone's nameservers.

How do I force sendmail to check the /etc/hosts file first?

TIA.

Bill Horne