Why do this

There are a multitude of reasons to do this or use an application like the one shared here. Maybe there is an application that phones home and you need to test how it behaves when it loses connection with a URL. Or there is a need to set this up to keep a system from accessing unsecure sites/services online.

Where to get hostctl from

hostctl’s GitHub page: https://github.com/guumaster/hostctl

How to use hostctl

Here is a simple example to use this app to update the hosts file with a hosted list on a specific URL.

Remember: This application works in multiple OSs. I’m just showing how to use it on Windows as an example.

Domains list Example URL: https://listwebsite.local/list.txt

  1. Put the executable in a directory covered by your PATH variable.
  2. Execute something like the following
hostctl add <myprofilename> -f https://listwebsite.local/list.txt
  1. The executable will create a profile called myprofilename inside the hosts file. That is to keep additions separate from the default/manually entered ones already in the hosts file.

This application can be used to perform backups and restores of the hosts file too. More about it can be found in the documentation at: https://guumaster.github.io/hostctl/