The purpose of editing your HOST file is to tell your computer which IP address a domain name should be associated with. This is often before your domain name is updated to point to a particular IP address. e.g. moving web hosts or for web development reasons.
Windows Computers
1) Right-Click Notepad and Choose "Run as Administrator"
2) Use the File Open dialog in Notepad to go to "C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc"
3) You will need to change the file type setting in the Open dialog to "*.*".
4) Click on "HOSTS" and open the document.
5) Edit the document per the instructions like this:
10.10.10.10 domain.com
10.10.10.10 www.domain.com
* Replace IP Address with the new IP address from your DNS settings.
6) Save and open in a browser. (you might need to clear the browser cache still).
NOTE: once DNS has propagated you will want to remove these entries from your computer to avoid future problems.
Linux
- Open a terminal window.
-
Open the hosts file in a text editor (you can use any text editor) by typing the following line:
sudo nano /etc/hosts
- Enter your domain user password.
- Make the necessary changes to the file.
- Press Control-x.
- When asked if you want to save your changes, answer y.
Mac OS X 10.0 through 10.12
Mac OS X 10.0 through 10.1.5
- Open /Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager.
- To allow editing of the NetInfo database, click the padlock in the lower-left corner of the window.
- Enter your domain user password and click OK.
-
In the second column of the browser view, select the node named machines.
The third column contains entries for -DHCP- , broadcasthost , and localhost .
- In the third column, select
localhost .
-
From the Edit menu, select Duplicate. (The quickest way to create a new entry is to duplicate an existing one.)
A confirmation alert appears.
-
Click Duplicate.
A new entry called localhost copy appears, and its properties are shown below the browser view.
- Double-click the value of the
ip_address property and enter the IP address of the other computer.
- Double-click the value of the
name property and enter the hostname you want for the other computer.
- Click the
serves property and select Delete from the Edit menu.
-
From the File menu, select Save.
A confirmation alert appears.
- Click Update this copy.
- Repeat steps 6 through 12 for each additional host entry that you want to add.
-
From the NetInfo Manager menu, select Quit.
You do not need to restart the computer.
Mac OS X 10.6 through 10.12
- Open Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
-
Open the hosts file by typing the following line in the terminal window:
sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
- Type your domain user password when prompted.
-
Edit the hosts file.
The file contains some comments (lines starting with the # symbol), and some default hostname mappings (for example, 127.0.0.1 – local host). Add your new mappings after the default mappings.
- Save the hosts file by pressing Control+x and answering y.
-
Make your changes take effect by flushing the DNS cache with the following command:
dscacheutil -flushcache
The new mappings should now take effect.
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