October 27, 2009
How to Edit the Hosts File Mac OS X Snow Leopard
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There are times during DNS changes or other testing that you may want to specify a particular IP for a domain name. To do this, you’ll need to edit your hosts file. This way you can “trick” your computer before DNS actually changes or point a domain to another IP, even a local one. Some of the instructions out there on how to do this are a little too bloated, so I tried to simplify them as much as possible here on DotResults. If you have any questions about this, please leave a comment and we’ll get back to you as soon as we read it.
1. Open Terminal
2. Paste this command:
sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
You’ll be asked to enter your administrator password.
3. Arrow down to the last line, highlighted here, and type your entry like this: 137.61.27.216 www.tech.com
4. Press control+x. Type the letter Y. This saves the file.
5. To flush your DNS cache so the changes take effect, paste this command next:
dscacheutil -flushcache
6. You can test if it has worked by using the PING command. Try PING tech.com and PING www.tech.com – the IP addresses should be different.
Thanks a lot! Really helped me out
Where do I paste the command to flush?
OK sorted it!
Thank you by the way!
Thank you this helped me a lot! I couldn’t find a decent explanation until I came upon your page. Cheers.
This is the first time I’ve ever experienced success at editing the hosts file, after several years of intermittent attempts. Nobody shows you how to use the command line; they just say “Uh, edit the hosts file,” or “Go to private/etc/hosts,” or something like that.
So thank you for being concise and accurate!
This was great! The only hiccup I experienced was in saving the hosts file. After you hit Cntrl+x and then type the letter y, you then have to hit enter!
Thanks for the instructions.
Great article. Easy to understand. Thanks for the help!