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#MAC OS HOST FILE LOCATION HOW TO#
#MAC OS HOST FILE LOCATION PASSWORD#
#MAC OS HOST FILE LOCATION MAC#

The time savings is minimal, but the hosts file will also come into play by providing the address in the event that the DNS server you are using is unavailable for some reason.Ĭontrolling Internet access – This may well be the most often reason cited for editing the hosts file. Reduce IP lookup time – Specifying an address and domain name in your hosts file will save a few milliseconds each time you access that site. Here are some reasons to take the time to edit your hosts file You may also encounter situations where the hosts file is not working as it was intended to and is causing connection failures or other issues with your network traffic. There are several reasons why editing your hosts file makes sense to improve your speed when connecting over the network. Since the absence of an entry for a designated domain in your hosts file does not preclude you reaching that site through a DNS lookup, you might be wondering why you would ever want to edit it. You can also leave the hosts file alone and let DNS handle locating and forwarding your network traffic. This is often required in corporate settings where internal networks are employed. You can create an extensive hosts file to exert control over how your computer access hosts over the network. This essentially blocks access to domains with an address of 127.0.0.1.

Using this address simply returns control to the local machine. Take special note of the localhost entry and the IP address of 127.0.0.1. If you intend to make changes to your hosts file, we suggest that you first make a copy of it to revert to if necessary. To add hosts, insert a line after the localhost entry and type in the address and domain name.

There are no hosts specified in this file which means that all IP lookups will be done via a DNS server.

# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface

You will see something like this very simple hosts file.

This restricts non-administrators from making unauthorized changes that could impact the system.

#MAC OS HOST FILE LOCATION PASSWORD#

You will be prompted for your administrators password which will need to be provided to edit this file.

In the Terminal window enter the following command: sudo nano /etc/hosts.

Open the Terminal application which can be found by opening a Finder window and navigating to Applications and then Utilities.

Follow these steps to edit your Mac’s hosts file: ❗įor the purposes of this demonstration, we will use the nano text editor that is included with macOS Sierra and later versions. Since it is a text file, you can essentially use any text editor to make modifications.❗ Do not use a word processor. On macOS machines, the file is located at /etc/hosts. Where the file is located in the file system hierarchy is, however, dependent on the computing platform. Your computer would use this information to directly navigate to the site without requiring a DNS lookup. Tells us that thebest.website is located at 123.123.123.123. It is made up of lines of text identifying a numeric IP address and the corresponding host name. All operating systems employ the same hosts file format. The plain-text of the hosts file is identical regardless of the operating system on which it is used. We will discuss how this can be used both for beneficial and malicious purposes later in the article. This means that entries in the hosts file will negate any DNS lookup for the named hosts. The IP lookup sequence described above indicates that the hosts file has precedence when determining a host’s address. The request will fail if the name cannot be found via the DNS server.

If the requested name is not in the local host file, the next step is to attempt to resolve the address using a Domain Name Service (DNS) server. When your machine needs to look up an IP address it will first search the hosts file. It basically serves as a database of domain names which your operating system employs to identify and locate hosts on an IP network. The hosts file is a text file that is comprised of a list of host names and their corresponding IP addresses.

#MAC OS HOST FILE LOCATION HOW TO#

We will show you how to edit this file and run through some scenarios that may necessitate making changes that impact network activity. In this article, we will look closely at this important file that is a critical component which allows your computer to access a network or the Internet. There are, however, some files that you may need to access and even edit in order to modify your computer or recover from a virus or malware attack.

#MAC OS HOST FILE LOCATION MAC#

The majority of these files will never be directly accessed by the average Mac user and will be called upon by the OS to perform their designated task when required to do so. There are literally many thousands of files that provide the functionality of the macOS.