Macos – Why isn’t /etc/hosts blocking domains after I add blocked sites via launchd

blockinghosts-fileipv6macos

I've been trying to setup Launchd to block several websites on osX 10.12.2 from 9AM – 3PM Monday-Friday

I set up launchd to cp /etc/hosts_BLOCKED_sites.txt /etc/hosts

Launchd seems to be copying the file correctly.

$ ls -la /etc/hosts   

    -rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  715 Jan 10 15:01 /etc/hosts

 

$ sudo cat /etc/hosts

    ##  
    # Host Database  
    #  
    # localhost is used to configure the loopback interface  
    # when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.  
    ##   
    127.0.0.1   localhost   
    255.255.255.255 broadcasthost  
    ::1             localhost   


    # Blocked sites redirected to 0.0.0.0  
    0.0.0.0 reddit.com   
    0.0.0.0 www.reddit.com  
    0.0.0.0 facebook.com  
    0.0.0.0 www.facebook.com

However, I can still open the blocked sites after the /etc/hosts are set to block access.

Any suggestions about why /etc/hosts isn't blocking access to the sites?

Things I have attempted but have failed to block sites on Chrome:

  • sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder from the command line
  • I attempted to flush the Chrome DNS cache via chrome://net-internals/#dns
  • I attempted to flush the Chrome Sockets chrome://netinternals/#sockets
  • I switched the hosts file to redirect sites to 127.0.0.1 , it did not block the site and I was told it's faster to redirect to 0.0.0.0

This did not make a difference. All the blocked sites are still accessible via Chrome v55.0.2883.95.

Best Answer

I noticed that your /etc/hosts file has permission 600. The permissions on that file should generally be 644. If your application can't read /etc/hosts then it will just use DNS.

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