Managing Local Hosts File Suggestions

[davewolfs]

Hello all,

I would like to maintain a local hosts file that persists through router restarts. Should I just be updating the hosts file via the JFFS file system, or am I better off linking the additional hosts to a hosts file on my USB Mount. My concern for doing this on JFFS is the writes taking place on flash memory.

Any suggestions? Should I even care about periodically modifying files on the JFFS file system?

Thanks!

 

[ColinTaylor]

Unless you are going to be updating your hosts file multiple times a day, every day then placing it on the JFFS will be fine.

 

[davewolfs]

Ended up adding a simple dnsmasq.postconf to my jffs/scripts folder.

#!/bin/sh
CONFIG=$1
HOSTS_PATH=/tmp/mnt/KINGSTON/config
source /usr/sbin/helper.sh
cp /etc/hosts.dnsmasq $HOSTS_PATH
cat $HOSTS_PATH/hosts >> $HOSTS_PATH/hosts.dnsmasq

pc_replace "addn-hosts=/etc/hosts.dnsmasq" "addn-hosts=$HOSTS_PATH/hosts.dnsmasq" $CONFIG

Also seems like it can be done even easier with the hosts.postconf

#!/bin/sh
HOSTS_PATH=/tmp/mnt/KINGSTON/config
cat /$HOSTS_PATH/hosts >> /etc/hosts

 

[thelonelycoder]

You can also accomplish this with the file /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add
and add to it (no shebang needed)

addn-hosts=/tmp/mnt/KINGSTON/config

If you are blocking hosts with this you can autoupdate it.

 

[samb]

You can also accomplish this with the file /jffs/configs/dnsmasq.conf.add
and add to it (no shebang needed)

addn-hosts=/tmp/mnt/KINGSTON/config

If you are blocking hosts with this you can autoupdate it.

Hello,

Should that not read:

addn-hosts=/tmp/mnt/KINGSTON/config/nameof.file

Where nameof.file is the name of the hosts file to read?

Thanks
Sam

 

[thelonelycoder]

Should that not read:
addn-hosts=/tmp/mnt/KINGSTON/config/nameof.file
Where nameof.file is the name of the hosts file to read?

Whatever the path/filename of your additional hosts file is will be YOUR setting.

 

[samb]

Hello,

I must be missing something because I can't seem to get it to work, I have created the add file.

uname@RT-AC66U:/jffs/configs# ls -la
drwxr-xr-x 2 uname root 0 Apr 17 16:52 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 uname root 0 Apr 17 17:00 ..
-rw-rw-rw- 1 uname root 47 Apr 17 16:52 dnsmasq.conf.add

sbarr@RT-AC66U:/jffs/configs# cat dnsmasq.conf.add
addn-hosts=/tmp/mnt/BLANK/config/myhosts.file

uname@RT-AC66U:/tmp/mnt/BLANK/config# ls -la
drwxrwxrwx 2 uname root 2048 Apr 17 2014 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 uname root 16384 Jan 1 2011 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 uname root 56 Apr 17 17:00 myhosts.file

uname@RT-AC66U:/tmp/mnt/BLANK/config# cat myhosts.file
0.0.0.2 gateway.specialdomain.com
0.0.0.2 diskstation

These are not pinging....

uname@RT-AC66U:/tmp/mnt/BLANK/config# ping diskstation
ping: bad address 'diskstation'

 

[samb]

hmm it does seem to be reading the file.

Apr 17 17:16:45 dnsmasq-dhcp[564]: DHCP, IP range 0.0.0.0 -- 0.0.0.254, lease time 1d
Apr 17 17:16:45 dnsmasq-dhcp[564]: DHCP, sockets bound exclusively to interface br0
Apr 17 17:16:45 dnsmasq[564]: read /etc/hosts - 5 addresses
Apr 17 17:16:45 dnsmasq[564]: read /tmp/mnt/BLANK/config/myhosts.file - 2 addresses
Apr 17 17:16:45 dnsmasq[564]: using nameserver 212.159.6.10#53
Apr 17 17:16:45 dnsmasq[564]: using nameserver 212.159.6.9#53

 

[thelonelycoder]

These are not pinging....

Better do it that way, directly in dnsmasq.conf.add:

address=/gateway.specialdomain.com/10.0.1.2
address=/diskstation/10.0.1.2

 

[samb]

Better do it that way, directly in dnsmasq.conf.add:

address=/gateway.specialdomain.com/10.0.1.2
address=/diskstation/10.0.1.2

Hello,

That doesn't seem to work either, plus I would rather not be editing files in the jffs partition too much.

Any other ideas?

-Sam

 

[thelonelycoder]

That doesn't seem to work either, plus I would rather not be editing files in the jffs partition too much.
Any other ideas?
-Sam

It'll take more than occasional editing of /jffs/ files to wear it out. Don't worry too much about the warning.
You have to restart dnsmasq to get your settings read by dnsmasq:

service restart_dnsmasq

or

reboot

Flush your DNS Cache on Windows:

ipconfig/flushdns

 

[samb]

Hello,

Yep already tried the reboot and the service restart, the problem is even afterwards the hostnames are not pingable via the router.

uname@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# ping diskstation
ping: bad address 'diskstation'

-Sam

 

[thelonelycoder]

Hang on Sam, this is a special case.

 

[thelonelycoder]

Yep already tried the reboot and the service restart, the problem is even afterwards the hostnames are not pingable via the router.
uname@RT-AC66U:/tmp/home/root# ping diskstation
ping: bad address 'diskstation'

Best way for you would be to add your diskstation to the LAN / DHCP Server Manually assigned DHCP list in your router.
gateway.specialdomain.com will work in dnsmasq.conf.add but
diskstation not. This is because dnsmasq will interpret a single name as tld as in whatever.diskstation
Capisce?

 

[RocketJSquirrel]

I've been following this thread and wondering all along: why not simply create /jffs/configs/hosts.add and you're done? What did I miss?

 

[thelonelycoder]

I've been following this thread and wondering all along: why not simply create /jffs/configs/hosts.add and you're done? What did I miss?

Depends on what you want to do. You can do a lot more with dnsmasq.conf.add than just the hosts file. Thats why I suggested to use it.

 

[samb]

Hello,

Something still isn't right, I have added a totally duff (non existent domain) into the custom hosts file and tried to ping it from the router and it doesn't work.

Now if I put it in the default /etc/hosts it pings fine it just doesn't seem to work if I put it in my custom hosts file.

-Sam

 

[thelonelycoder]

Hello,

Something still isn't right, I have added a totally duff (non existent domain) into the custom hosts file and tried to ping it from the router and it doesn't work.

Now if I put it in the default /etc/hosts it pings fine it just doesn't seem to work if I put it in my custom hosts file.

-Sam

Check your paths, syntax, I dont know. This is simple stuff. It works.

 

[samb]

Hello,

It couldn't be anything to do with the fact that I am not using the default admin username could it?

Thanks
Sam

 

[thelonelycoder]

It couldn't be anything to do with the fact that I am not using the default admin username could it?

No, this has nothing to do with it.