Description

• Hosts File Symbolic Link Manager
• quickly switch between multiple hosts files

Usage

• Backup your hosts file, there are currently no safety features to detect if the file linked is a legit hosts file
• don’t run with sudo
• symlinking to the hosts file calls sudo command on it’s own
• pass no options for help/usage

Directories

• put hostsm.sh in bin folder for quick access

mv hostsm.sh /bin/hostsm
chmod +x hostsm

• hosts files are put in ~/.config/hostsm

Compatibility

• all GNU/LINUX Distributions which use the /etc/hosts file
• MacOS (until 10.14.x macOS Mojave)
• MacOS Catalania user can manually change the script to route to /private/etc/hosts
• Windows: currently not supported, planned

Recommended HOSTS Files

https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts

Use cases

• quickly enable or disable social media
• probably a lot more

Alias

alias social-media-off=hostsm -f [name of HOSTS file that blocks social media]
alias social-media-on=hostsm -f [name of HOSTS file that allows social media]

• detect if user is running MacOS Catalania and change hosts location to /private/etc/hosts
• make a batch script which works on Windows (example: https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/blob/master/updateHostsWindows.bat)
• tidy up script
• automatically install script, etc
• beginner friendly documentation
• print name of currently used hosts file
• autocomplete file name

hostsm is free/libre software.