How To Edit C Windows System32 Drivers Etc Hosts

In this commodity we bear witness you the like shooting fish in a barrel manner to edit your hosts file on Windows, Mac and Linux. We also get over how to flush your DNS resolver cache.

Please annotation: that editing the hosts file requires administrator/root privileges.

Almost of the guides I take seen on this topic while authentic are too pretty over complicated.

For Windows:

The hosts file is located: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

To open this file and edit as admin:

Open powershell: The fastest fashion to open PowerShell is via a Get-go Card Search. Just click the Start or Search icon, then type "powershell" in the search box.

With powershell open you tin can then paste the below command via right click and hitting enter. This volition open notepad as administrator and edit the hosts file all in one go. You will see a UAC prompt due to the administrator privileges needed.

powershell -c start -verb runas notepad.exe 'C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts'

To flush dns and and then edit the hosts file you can use the 2d one to relieve yourself that pace later.

ipconfig /flushdns; powershell -c offset -verb runas notepad.exe 'C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts'

For a visual walk through see the below.

Powershell affluent dns and edit hosts file after

One time UAC prompt accepted notepad will load the hosts file for editing.

Once y'all take made changes you volition desire to have flushed dns resolver's so that whatever cached entries are cleared and the new entries added are used. This is covered in the second control but can be done via the below manually if you however have notepad opened and are editing and saving and need to flush between edits.

For Linux:

The hosts file is located at: /etc/hosts

To edit this via a GUI graphical editor in Ubuntu/Debian one of the beneath commands can be used to open via xed/gedit which are the default graphical editors in Mint Linux and etc.

Linux Mint:

Ubuntu/Debian:

For cases where y'all may not accept those installed the beneath alternatives volition too work and edit via your default final editor.

To flush your resolver cache in linux run into the beneath. There three main resolvers and hence ways to do this based on the local OS resolver setup.

systemd-resolved
dnsmasq
nscd

For clearing systemd-resolver the beneath tin be used.

sudo systemctl is-agile systemd-resolved.service && sudo systemd-resolve --flush-caches

For immigration dnsmasq the below can be used.

sudo systemctl is-active dnsmasq.service && sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq.service;

For immigration nscd the below can exist used.

sudo systemctl is-active nscd.service && sudo systemctl restart nscd.service ;

If you don't know which one your's is using you can as well just try the beneath string which chains all the higher up and only runs if whatsoever one of those services is active it will then restart information technology to flush it.

sudo systemctl is-active systemd-resolved.service && sudo systemd-resolve --affluent-caches; sudo systemctl is-active dnsmasq.service && sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq.service; sudo systemctl is-active nscd.service && sudo systemctl restart nscd.service ;

If your on a legacy system or one without systemd and uses upstart/init you tin can use something like the below to restart dnsmasq or nscd.

sudo service dnsmasq restart; sudo service nscd restart ;

For Mac:

The hosts file is located in: /etc/hosts or /private/etc/hosts

Y'all tin edit this via i of the below commands:

Newer Macs:

Older Macs:

sudo nano /private/etc/hosts

Hosts file exists in both paths example.

To flush DNS:

The beneath command can be used. Delight Annotation: If any i of them errors it is safe to ignore. MacOS depending on the version has unlike ways to flush the DNS. The beauty of the below command is that is accounts for all of them in one command if the legacy ones neglect information technology doesn't matter equally it will accept however flushed the cache no matter which version.

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder ; sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache ; sudo discoveryutil udnsflushcaches;

Universal MacOS flush dns resolver cache

Optimize your workflow:

If you observe yourself doing lots of evolution piece of work, migrations, and troubleshooting where you demand to quickly edit your hosts file to check a site on old and new server or with and without the CDN/WAF the above steps can be pretty fourth dimension consuming fifty-fifty with the super simple methods i condensed from beingness multiple steps into ane or 2 commands per Bone.

In the Sorcerer Assistant desktop app this whole process is even more refined where yous can initiate the editing and dns flushing from ane click inside the apps Tools carte for Windows and Linux. See example below of it in action.