Hi all,
i just tried to edit the /etc/hosts file.
I entered terminal, started vi. No success, no write access.
sudo administrator, no sucess, no write access.
Passwords for root and wheel are unknown, and i self have installed my yosemite.
i tried to do a temporary chmod o+w, no success.
So what, where, when must i do to edit the hosts file?
Thank you!
Greetings from germany
Chris
Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)
Meanwhile i found several threads here with the same problem.
Some say to move hosts to desktop, edit move back again - my finder doesnt see /etc nor hosts.
Some say that yosemite ignores hosts.
Some say to use specialized host edit apps.
Everything else doesnt work.
My last try has been to sudo as admin or root, but the system told me i am not in the sudoers, which of course can´t be edited too.
What can i do?
There are three levels of user account on a Mac.
The file /etc/hosts is owned by 'root' and needs root level access to edit it. Trying to edit it as a normal user will clearly not work, nor will editing it as an 'Administrator' level user by doing the following.
Login to Mac as ordinary user
Open Terminal
su administrator
vi /etc/hosts
The above does not work because you are still only working in Terminal as an administrator level user and not as 'root'.
The following should work
Open Terminal
sudo vi /etc/hosts
or if you are logged in to the Mac as an ordinary user the following will get round your user level login not being in the sudoers file
Open Terminal
su administrator
sudo vi /etc/hosts
The sudo command runs the rest of that line as root level permissions. It will ask for the administrator password, but will run as root.
If you don't know the user name and password for an administrator level user then you should not be trying this.
Hi John,
what shall i say? BINGOOOOOO!
Yes, this works. Thank you!
Some things must have changed a little since my old xenix and apple unix days.
greetings from germany
Chris
how to edit hosts file?
