Editing Hosts file

[pulsewidth947]

Hi!

I'm sick of kicking students off myspace when they should be doing work so I've decided to block it once and for all! Muahaha. I've found the Hosts file in /etc/ and I added

127.0.0.1 myspace.com

which works wonderfully, but you can still access www.myspace.com. I tried to add that address in the Hosts file, but it doesnt block it - it loads as if it didnt exsist.

I tried a couple of different browsers to check it wasnt cached

Any suggestions?
Thanks.

 

[realityisterror]

Try blocking the IP addresses of their nameservers?

NS1.MYSPACE.COM 204.74.66.247
NS2.MYSPACE.COM 204.74.67.247

I'm not at all sure if that'll work, but I think it should.

Good luck

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

OS X does its best to ignore the HOSTS file. You have to configure it through the NetInfo Manager.

 

[superbovine]

is your os x box you dns server? you should probably be doing this in your dns server. this way it will be a global change rather than each box.

however, to answer your question:

use host.deny and wildcards.

http://www.macos.utah.edu/Documentation/macosx/security/tcpwrappers.html

or you can do it at the network level and just create an acl on your router on the hardware level (layer 3 of the osi model).

 

[pulsewidth947]

Thanks for your replies.

I couldnt work out how to use NetInfo Manager. I started following instructions off an O'Reilly website, but got frustrated because I didnt understand.

I'll try blocking the name servers. I know I should be doing this on the DNS server, well I could get myspace added to the blocks on our proxy, but 1 group of students need to use it some times for music, but as its a seperate room, using Hosts would allow this.

 

[simie]

Apple wrote this basic handbook

http://www.apple.com/server/pdfs/UnderstandingUsingNetInfo.pdf

 

[pulsewidth947]

Awesome, thanks for the link