hosts-timer

Block websites on your system with /etc/hosts, and re-enable them on demand for a specified amount of time.

Installation

Requires Go to be installed (tested with Go 1.15.x).

git clone https://github.com/cdzombak/hosts-timer.git
cd hosts-timer
make install

Usage

Setup for domain(s)

sudo hosts-timer -install facebook.com twitter.com

(-disable is an alias for -install, which disables the given sites.)

Use a site for a specified duration of time

sudo hosts-timer -time 5m twitter.com

Durations must be acceptable by time.ParseDuration.

Remove hosts-timer block for domain(s)

sudo hosts-timer -uninstall twitter.com facebook.com

(-enable is an alias for -uninstall, which enables the given sites.)

Setup Hints

.zshrc helpers

function use-facebook() {
    if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
        echo "Usage: use-facebook DURATION"
        echo "   eg. use-facebook 5m"
        return 1
    fi
    sudo hosts-timer -time "$1" facebook.com
}

function use-twitter() {
    if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
        echo "Usage: use-twitter DURATION"
        echo "   eg. use-twitter 5m"
        return 1
    fi
    sudo hosts-timer -time "$1" twitter.com
}

Alfred helpers

Install the included Alfred helpers, and then you can use Alfred to enable Twitter or Facebook for a given amount of time (default 5 minutes).

Create /etc/sudoers.d/hosts-timer

cdzombak ALL=NOPASSWD: /usr/local/bin/hosts-timer

And then:

sudo chown root:wheel /etc/sudoers.d/hosts-timer
sudo chmod 440 /etc/sudoers.d/hosts-timer

Author

Chris Dzombak

• dzombak.com
• github/cdzombak