protected static String validateHostOrThrow(String host) throws UnknownHostException {
    if (host == null || host.isEmpty()) {
      return null;
    }

    InetAddress.getByName(trimLeadingSlash(host));
    return host;
  }
Validates the host by making sure it can successfully be used to get an instance of
InetAddress. Any leading slashes on host will be ignored. If the host string is null or empty
then null is returned.

@param host The string version the InetAddress

@return The host converted to InetAddress instance

@throws UnknownHostException if no IP address for the {@code host} could be found
geode-core/src/main/java/org/apache/geode/admin/internal/InetAddressUtils.java