Hosts file in linux and windows

The hosts file is a computer file used by an operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. The hosts file is a plain text file, and is conventionally named hosts.

The hosts file is one of several system facilities that assists in addressing network nodes in a computer network. It is a common part of an operating system's Internet Protocol (IP) implementation, and serves the function of translating human-friendly hostnames into numeric protocol addresses, called IP addresses, that identify and locate a host in an IP network.

In some operating systems, the hosts file's content is used preferentially to other methods, such as the Domain Name System (DNS), but many systems implement name service switches (e.g., nsswitch.conf for Linux and Unix) to provide customization. Unlike the DNS, the hosts file is under the direct control of the local computer's administrator

 

Operating System	Version(s)	Location
Unix, Unix-like, POSIX		/etc/hosts[2]
Microsoft Windows	3.1	%WinDir%\HOSTS
	95, 98/98SE, Me	%WinDir%\hosts[3]
	NT, 2000, XP (x86 & x64),[4] 2003, Vista, 7 and 8	%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts [5]
Windows Mobile		Registry key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\Tcpip\Hosts
Apple Macintosh	9 and earlier
	Mac OS X 10.0 – 10.1.5 [6]	(Added through NetInfo or niload)
	Mac OS X 10.2 and newer	/etc/hosts (a symbolic link to /private/etc/hosts)[6]
Novell NetWare		SYS:etc\hosts
OS/2 & eComStation		"bootdrive":\mptn\etc\
Symbian	Symbian OS 6.1–9.0	C:\system\data\hosts
	Symbian OS 9.1+	C:\private\10000882\hosts
MorphOS	NetStack	ENVARC:sys/net/hosts
AmigaOS	4	DEVS:Internet/hosts
Android		/etc/hosts (a symbolic link to /system/etc/hosts)
iOS	iOS 2.0 and newer	/etc/hosts (a symbolic link to /private/etc/hosts)
TOPS-20
Plan 9		/lib/ndb/hosts
BeOS		/boot/beos/etc/hosts[7]
Haiku		/boot/common/settings/network/hosts[7]
OpenVMS	UCX	UCX$HOST
	TCPware	TCPIP$HOST