Is there a GUI for /etc/hosts that I can use?

Question

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!

Answer 1

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?

Answer 2

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

Answer 3

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

sudo aptitude install gnome-network-admin

Answer 4

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