hostsd - A simple hosts file manager

hostsd is a simple hosts file manager that allows you to separate your hosts file into multiple files and easily enable or disable them. It's useful for development environments where you need to manage lots of hosts entries, or for managing ad-blocking hosts files.

Dependencies

• Python 3.8 or later (earlier versions may work but are untested)
• Linux or macOS (should work on Windows too but is untested)

Installation

pip install hostsd

Now, to ensure that your existing /etc/hosts contents are retained, you can copy the file to /etc/hosts.d/00-original:

sudo mkdir /etc/hosts.d
sudo cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts.d/00-original

Usage

To write the contents of /etc/hosts.d/* to /etc/hosts:

sudo hostsd

You can also specify the input and output paths:

hostsd -i /etc/hosts.d -o /etc/hosts

You can disable a file by adding a .disabled extension:

mv /etc/hosts.d/10-my-file /etc/hosts.d/10-my-file.disabled

Hidden files (files starting with a dot) are ignored as well.

Running hostsd automatically

You can run hostsd automatically using a cron job or a systemd timer. Here's an example of a systemd timer (assuming you have installed hostsd globally, for simplicity):

# /etc/systemd/system/hostsd.timer
[Unit]
Description=Update hosts file every minute

[Timer]
OnBootSec=1min
OnUnitActiveSec=1min

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

# /etc/systemd/system/hostsd.service
[Unit]
Description=Update hosts file

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/hostsd

sudo systemctl enable hostsd.timer
sudo systemctl start hostsd.timer

This will run hostsd every minute. So you can just drop a new file in /etc/hosts.d and it will be picked up automatically.

You could even combine this with a git repository and you have a simple way to manage your hosts files across multiple machines or share them with others, without needing to set up and manage a full DNS server.

License

hostsd is licensed under the MIT license. See LICENSE for the full license text.