HOSTS files can help protect educational environments from inappropriate materials online.
Copyright © Michael McMahon 2011-2016. Except where otherwise specified, the text on HOSTS by Michael McMahon is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0 (International) (CC-BY-SA 4.0).
The goal is to only allow games on Fridays while keeping a generally safe environment for children. Creative projects should be made Monday-Thursday.
Manually updating and copying these files can be cumbersome so the process should be automated such as this example for Windows or this example for Mac.
WARNING: I use this in addition to a content filter. This is not complete and does not claim to be.
There are five main types of files here.
- F files allow games.
- MTWR files block games.
- win files use the End of Line formatting for Windows systems.
- unix files use the End of Line formatting for Linux, Mac, routers, and Unix systems.
- LS files redirect to a local web server instead of giving an error.
I am looking for help with the following:
- adding domains to HOSTSMTWRwin.txt or HOSTSFwin.txt
- correcting improper categorazation
More information:
- localhost is used to configure the loopback interface.
- Loopbacks can redirect the domain to the IP address of your choosing.
- 127.0.0.1 goes nowhere.
- LS files can redirect inappropriate websites to a local web server full of constructive opportunities. This is much better than the alternative of hitting a content filter dead end.
- This script builds each variation of these files automatically.