What is the purpose of "/etc/hosts" and how does it interact with DNS lookups?

A "/etc/hosts" is a local file that maps hostnames to IP addresses and is typically checked before querying DNS servers, allowing administrators to override DNS resolution for specific hosts or define local-only hostnames B "/etc/hosts" stores a list of all users permitted to log in via SSH C "/etc/hosts" is only used by Windows systems, not Linux D DNS servers always take precedence over "/etc/hosts" regardless of configuration