[no subject]

man 5 hosts
               IP_address canonical_hostname aliases

What is the difference between what you refer to as "CNAME" and the "aliases" already provided in /etc/hosts?

If you mean to use /etc/hosts instead of DNS, the be sure your /etc/nsswitch.conf is configured correctly, and whatever tool you are using actually supports it.
man 5 nsswitch.conf
nsswitch.conf  - System Databases and Name Service Switch configuration file
        hosts  Host names and numbers, used  by  gethostbyname(3)  and  similar  functions.

   Lastly, write a script/alias to do something like "awk '/$1/ {print \$1}' /etc/hosts"  (assuming first "$1" is a bash cmd line substitution)

> 2) be able to configure /etc/hosts-like settings on a per-user basis. 

   What are you trying to accomplish here?

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