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I want to be able to easily and frequently edit my hosts file from a quick GUI. Any one know of one that exists?

Thanks!

Panther
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Nicky Hajal
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7 Answers7

11

As already answered hosts is just a text file so you can use any text editor. Since it exists in /etc and you cannot edit as general user you need to use sudo. The graphical frontend to sudo is gksu. So basically doing gksu YOUR_GRAPHICAL_EDITOR /etc/hosts will do it OR you can use terminal with nano and vim. I recommend nano as it is quite easy.

sudo nano /etc/hosts

In order to ease the command you can use alias.

So edit your .bashrc file in your $HOME. i.e. In your terminal do:

nano .bashrc

Add

alias edithosts='gksu YOUR_GRAPHICAL_EDITOR /etc/hosts' OR 'sudo nano/vim/vi /etc/hosts'

and save it with Ctrl+x. And do source ~/.bashrc. Then you can use edithosts from commandline to use it.

If you use unity you may use quicklist as well What Custom Launchers and Unity Quicklists are available?

Community
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sagarchalise
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7

sagarchalise's answer is great, I also discovered gnome-network-admin which includes a pretty nice interface to edit hosts

sudo apt install gnome-network-admin
Ravexina
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Nicky Hajal
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2

It's not a special editor as such, but you could always Alt+F2 gksudo gedit /etc/hosts.

zpletan
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try one from electron apps - it has GUI, but need some manipulation with node.js installation - githab README.md has detailed info. https://electron.atom.io/apps/?q=hosts

allseen
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1

Install this addon in firefox >>HostADmin 1.3.6 It is awesome !!!

Vipin Verma
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0

For those of you who use XFCE, I've written xfce-hosts-plugin to quickly toggle hosts in /etc/hosts.

enter image description here

Azmisov
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I'm developing HomA (Home Automation) that displays your required /etc/hosts in a GUI along with arp -a, hostnamectl status and ip addr combined into a unified view. It may suit your purpose.

It runs in Python 2.7.12+ and Python 3.5+ with Tkinter 8.6 (read Ubuntu 16.04 LTS ECM/Plus to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS) but may have difficulties with new experimental threads in Tkinter 9.0 in Python 3.13.

Here's a short .gif super compressed from an .mp4 video in order to fit in Stack Overflow from the website:

HomA Rediscover Now

This might be "GUI overkill" to your question, because it assigns an image to hosts in /etc/hosts, lets you turn them on and off, etc.

What you are seeing on the GUI comes from /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.1.1       Alien
192.168.0.1     Hitronhub.home Admin                          a8:4e:3f:82:98:b2
192.168.0.10    Alien          AW 17R3 WiFi                   9c:b6:d0:10:37:f7
192.168.0.12    Alien          AW 17R3 Ethernet               28:f1:0e:2a:1a:ed
192.168.0.11    Phone          Moto E4 Plus                   fc:d4:36:ea:82:36
192.168.0.13    Dell           Inspiron 17R-SE-7720 Ethernet  5c:f9:dd:5c:9c:53
192.168.0.14    Dell           Inspiron 17R-SE-7720 WiFi      60:6c:66:86:de:bd
192.168.0.15    SONY.Light     hs100 Sony TV Bias Light       50:d4:f7:eb:41:35
192.168.0.16    SONY.WiFi      Sony Bravia KDL TV WiFi        18:4f:32:8d:aa:97
192.168.0.17    TCL.LAN        TCL / Google TV Ethernet       c0:79:82:41:2f:1f
192.168.0.18    TCL.WiFi       TCL / Google TV WiFi           fc:d4:36:ea:82:36
192.168.0.19    SONY.LAN       Sony Bravia KDL TV Ethernet    ac:9b:0a:df:3f:d9
192.168.0.20    TCL.Light      hs100 TCL TV Bias Light        50:d4:f7:eb:46:7c
192.168.0.21    TCL.LAN2       amazon-54d22a1a9.hitronhub     98:28:a6:ba:76:f6
192.168.0.22    F3_Pro         Umidigi F3 Pro 5G              46:f0:89:36:f5:1d
192.168.0.254   Router.Login   Hitron Technology              00:05:ca:00:00:09
WinEunuuchs2Unix
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