How To Edit Host File On Mac For Adobe
The Windows HOSTS file functions like a local copy of a DNS server, so knowing how to edit it might come in handy if you want to make custom domain redirects, block websites, or remove malicious entries set by malware. That said, you might run into permission issues and other problems when trying to make changes to this file in some versions of Windows.
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- First please open Windows Explorer and open the hosts’ file located in C: Windows System32 Drivers etc. Then right-click the file “Hosts” and then select edit with notepad ++.
The instructions in this article apply to Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.
Editing the hosts file Editing the hosts file in Mac OS X – Leopard, is a pretty easy task, especially if you are familiar with the terminal. Step 1: – Open the Terminal.app Either by start typing Terminal on the Spotlight, or by going into Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal.
How to Edit the Windows HOSTS File
In Windows 7, 8, and 10, you can't save edits to the HOSTS file unless you open it directly from Notepad or another text editor. To do so:
Open Notepador another text editor like Notepad++.
In the text editor, select File > Open and navigate to the HOST file location at C:WindowsSystem32driversetc.
Copy and paste the path to the HOSTS file into the File name field to quickly find the folder without having to browse for it manually.
Select Text Documents (*txt) in the bottom-right of the Open window and change it to All Files.
This step is required because the HOSTS file doesn't have the .TXT file extension.
When files appear in the folder, double click hosts to open it.
You can now edit the HOSTS file and save any changes.
What If I Can't Save the HOSTS File?
In some versions of Windows, you don't have permission to save directly to theetc folder. If this is the case, you might see an error like this one when you try to save:
Instead, you must save the file elsewhere like the Documents or Desktop folder. After saving, go to that folder, copy the HOSTS file, and paste it directly into the location where the HOSTS file should be (C:WindowsSystem32driversetc). You'll be prompted with permission validation and will have to confirm overwriting the file.
If you still have trouble saving the modified HOSTS file, check the file's attributes to see if it's been marked read-only. Right-click the file and select Properties to see the attributes.
Another option is to open your text editor program as an administrator so that the permissions are already applied to the editor. Then, saving the HOSTS file over the original can be performed without having to verify your admin credentials.
If you still can't save to the HOSTS file location, you probably don't have the correct permissions to be editing files in that folder. You should be logged in under an account that has administrative rights over the HOSTS file, which you can check by right-clicking the file and going to the Security tab.
What Is the HOSTS File Used For?
The HOSTS file is the virtual equivalent of a phone company's directory assistance. Where directory assistance matches a person's name to a phone number, the HOSTS file maps domain names to IP addresses.
Entries in the HOSTS file override DNS entries maintained by the ISP. While this might come in handy for regular use, like to block ads or certain malicious IP addresses, its functions also make this file a common target of malware.
By modifying it, malware can block access to antivirus updates or force you to a malicious website. Thus, it's a good idea to check the HOSTS file periodically or at least know how to remove false entries.
A much easier way to block certain domains from your computer is to use a custom DNS service that supports content filtering or blacklists.
Your Mac’s hosts file is a small, but important text document that has the ability to map hostnames to specified IP addresses. Although the modern Internet uses a variety of public and private DNS servers to map IP addresses, the hosts file is a handy way to override those DNS servers, allowing you to manually point a website address to a desired IP address, or block access to a site altogether by pointing to an unused or internal IP address.
Here’s how to edit the Mac hosts file on macOS (previously known as Mac OS X).
Edit Your Mac Hosts File with Text Edit
There are two primary ways to edit the hosts file in Mac OS X. The first is by using TextEdit, since the hosts file is merely a simple plain text document. However, you can’t open the file directly, since it resides in a protected area of the file system. Instead, we need to copy the file to an unprotected location, like the Desktop, edit it, and then copy it back.
To find the hosts file, open Finder and, in Finder’s menu bar, select Go > Go to Folder. In the box, type the following location and press Return.
A new Finder window will open and your Mac’s hosts file will be selected. Click and drag it out of the Finder window and drop it on your desktop. This will let us freely edit the file.
To open it, simply double-click and it will display the file’s contents in TextEdit (or the text editor of your choice). By default, the hosts file is relatively simple. It contains a number of lines of descriptive text which are “commented out” with the pound or number sign (#). For each line, any text after the pound sign is ignored by the computer, making it a good way to add notes and descriptions to your files. It also contains default IP values for localhost and broadcasthost. To edit the file, you’ll add your own lines after broadcasthost.
In addition to testing newly developed websites and web hosting migrations, another reason to edit the hosts file is to block access to specific websites.
How To Edit Adobe Host File Mac
In our example, we’ll pretend that the computer we’re using is a work system that we want to use exclusively for work, not allowing ourselves to get distracted by Facebook on our work machine.
How To Edit Host File As Administrator
To do this, type the IP address you wish to assign followed by a hostname. In our case, we want to block Facebook so we’ll map www.facebook.com to 0.0.0.0 which, as an invalid IP address, will result in an error.
Now, whenever we try to go to www.facebook.com from our Mac, the Web browser will fail to load the page, hopefully encouraging us to get back to work!
Alternatively, you can enter the IP address of a valid site instead of 0.0.0.0, which will result in users attempting to access Facebook being directed to the site of your choosing.
To determine a website’s IP address, you can use the dig command, which comes standard with macOS. To “dig” the site via Terminal, we simply open up Terminal and then run the dig command on URL, which will then return the IP address as output.
$ dig www.techjunkie.com +short104.25.27.105
Note: The +short option keeps the output to just the information we need, which is the IP address.
Make note of the IP address that’s returned and use it in your Mac hosts file mapping. For example, The New York Times website at www.nytimes.com returns an IP address of 170.149.172.130. If we map that to Facebook in our hosts file, any time someone using the Mac tries to go to Facebook, they’ll see The New York Times load instead.
Note: Many websites won’t allow you to map a domain name to the IP address currently mapped to the site so you’ll get a security error when you try.
You can add as many entries to the hosts file as you wish by entering new mappings on each line. Once you’ve made your desired changes to the hosts file, save it in its current location on the Desktop.
Then, drag and drop the hosts file from your Desktop back to its original location at /private/etc. If you’ve closed the Finder window pointing to this directory, simply use the Finder > Go > Go to Folder command, discussed above, to reopen it.
When you drop the hosts file back in its original location, macOS will ask you what to do about the unmodified hosts file that’s already there. Choose “Replace” and then enter your administrative user password to authenticate the transfer.
With the modified hosts file now in place, fire up your Web browser to test the changes.
In most cases, the new mapping should work immediately, but if you’re not seeing the correct behavior, you may need to flush your DNS cache, forcing the browser to read from your hosts file to determine the mapping.
To flush the DNS cache on your Mac, open Terminal and use the following command (sudo enables you to run this command as the admin of your machine):
$ sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
Note: You will need to enter your admin password to execute this command.
To get your Mac to clear your DNS cache, then confirm it’s cleared your cache by echoing a confirmation, enter these two commands separated by a semi-colon as shown here:
$ sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder;say DNS cache has been flushed
Edit Your Mac Hosts File In Terminal With Nano
How To Edit Host File Windows 10
The steps in the previous section are easy enough, but if you want to avoid copying the hosts file you can edit it directly in Terminal using the UNIX Nano Text Editor, which is built into macOS.
To get started, launch Terminal, type the following command, and press Return. As with all sudo commands, you’ll need to also enter your admin password to execute it:$ sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
You’ll now see the hosts file open in the Nano editor. To navigate and edit the file, use the arrow keys on your keyboard.
Just as we did with the TextEdit method, above, we can add, edit, or remove hostname mappings at will. Because we launched Nano using sudo, any changes will be authenticated and saved directly to the original hosts file, without the need to copy it outside of its home directory.
When you’re done making changes, press Control-X to exit the editor, Y to save, and Return to overwrite the existing hosts file. As we mentioned earlier, make sure to flush your DNS cache if you notice that your new mappings aren’t working properly.
Our examples mentioned blocking and redirecting distracting sites in a work environment.
You can also use these steps to manually block access to malicious websites or, of course, to play a prank on friends and family members. If you ever make a mistake and you’re not sure how to fix it, you can always restore the default hosts file contents by using one of the methods above to enter the following default information:##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost
If you’re a Mac user and found this article useful, you might want to check out this TechJunkie tutorial on How to Find Your Mac’s Exact CPU Model.
How To Edit Host File
What’s the reason you’re seeking to edit your Mac’s hosts file? Please tell us about it in the comments below!