Append line to /etc/hosts file with shell script

I have a new Ubuntu 12.04 VPS. I am trying to write a setup script that completes an entire LAMP installation. Where I am having trouble is appending a line to the `/etc/hosts` file. My current hosts file looks like this: 127.0.0.1 localhost Venus # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts ::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback fe00::0 ip6-localnet ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters I would like it to look like this: 127.0.0.1 localhost Venus 192.241.xx.xx venus.example.com venus # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts ::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback fe00::0 ip6-localnet ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters I have tried a variety of `sed` commands using the append (`\a`) command. For some reason Ubuntu either just echoes the contents of the `hosts` file in terminal or does nothing at all. How would I properly inject the second line into the file with a bash script?