Using hosts file to prevent access to sites

[HotelGuy]

(My systems are Win98. Couldn't find a Win98 group. Hope this is
close enough.)

The hotel I work at provides just two public computers for our guests,
who are mostly business types. But right now we happen to have a
number of familes here and their kids are tying up the computers for
hours on end playing online games. The computer guy is out, so I am
trying to deal with this. The location of the machines make them hard
to police. So I have tried to make the sites they are using
unreachable by using the hosts file. But that doesn't seem to be
working. One of the sites they go to is www.cartoonnetwork.com. So I
put
127.0.0.1 cartoonnetwork.com
in the hosts file. I have spaces, not a tab character, beteen the ip
address and the domain name. And I have rebooted the machine. But
cartoonnetwork.com can still be accessed. What I've done should work,
right? Is it possible that the hosts file is in the wrong place? On
this machine it's in c:\windows.

Is there anyway to bypass the hosts file? I know NOTHING about how
these machines are set up, and the computer guy does some weird
things sometimes. So for all I know he might have disabled the hosts
file for some reason.

I'll be grateful for any help anyone can offer.

Thanks, Bob

[Mike M]

Bob,

> What I've done should work, right?

Yes

> Is it possible that the hosts file is in the wrong place? On
> this machine it's in c:\windows.

That's the correct location. Make sure that your edited hosts file has no
extension, that is that the file name is just HOSTS and not perhaps
HOSTS.TXT if you used Notepad to edit the original supplied sample file
hosts.sam. Whilst 127.0.0.1 cartoonnetwork.com should work try editing
it and using 127.0.0.1 www.cartoonnetwork.com
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP




HotelGuy > wrote:

> (My systems are Win98. Couldn't find a Win98 group. Hope this is
> close enough.)
>
> The hotel I work at provides just two public computers for our guests,
> who are mostly business types. But right now we happen to have a
> number of familes here and their kids are tying up the computers for
> hours on end playing online games. The computer guy is out, so I am
> trying to deal with this. The location of the machines make them hard
> to police. So I have tried to make the sites they are using
> unreachable by using the hosts file. But that doesn't seem to be
> working. One of the sites they go to is www.cartoonnetwork.com. So I
> put
> 127.0.0.1 cartoonnetwork.com
> in the hosts file. I have spaces, not a tab character, beteen the ip
> address and the domain name. And I have rebooted the machine. But
>
> Is there anyway to bypass the hosts file? I know NOTHING about how
> these machines are set up, and the computer guy does some weird
> things sometimes. So for all I know he might have disabled the hosts
> file for some reason.
>
> I'll be grateful for any help anyone can offer.
>
> Thanks, Bob

[B.J.Honeycut]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 17:58:48 (HotelGuy) penned
this whopper in microsoft.public.windowsme.general

> (My systems are Win98. Couldn't find a Win98 group. Hope this is
> close enough.)
>
> The hotel I work at provides just two public computers for our guests,
> who are mostly business types. But right now we happen to have a
> number of familes here and their kids are tying up the computers for
> hours on end playing online games. The computer guy is out, so I am
> trying to deal with this. The location of the machines make them hard
> to police. So I have tried to make the sites they are using
> unreachable by using the hosts file. But that doesn't seem to be
> working. One of the sites they go to is www.cartoonnetwork.com. So I
> put
> 127.0.0.1 cartoonnetwork.com
> in the hosts file. I have spaces, not a tab character, beteen the ip
> address and the domain name. And I have rebooted the machine. But
> cartoonnetwork.com can still be accessed. What I've done should work,
> right? Is it possible that the hosts file is in the wrong place? On
> this machine it's in c:\windows.
>
> Is there anyway to bypass the hosts file? I know NOTHING about how
> these machines are set up, and the computer guy does some weird
> things sometimes. So for all I know he might have disabled the hosts
> file for some reason.
>
> I'll be grateful for any help anyone can offer.
>
> Thanks, Bob
>

Hi Bob.
1. Make sure you have the Hosts file, not hosts.sam
2. usually there are 2 spaces after the localhost address by convention.
3. make sure nothing you enter is preceeded by a # or it will be ignored.
4. look to see if the file has been locked by spybot, spywareblaster, or a
firewall program like ZoneAlarm. HTH.

Also there is the microsoft.public.win98 group if you need more help with
those puppies.

--
"Time will bring to light whatever is hidden;
it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor."
Horace (65 - 8 BC); Roman poet.

Mike

[N. Miller]

In article >, HotelGuy
says...

> Is there anyway to bypass the hosts file?

Yes...

-----------------
01/12/05 11:38:46 dns cartoonnetwork.com
Mail for cartoonnetwork.com is handled by atlmail2.turner.com
nymail1.turner.com atlmail1.turner.com atlmail3.turner.com
Canonical name: cartoonnetwork.com
Addresses:
207.25.71.118
64.236.16.231
-----------------

If those kids are savvy enough to know the IP address for the site, using
http://207.25.71.118 in the URL window neatly bypasses the hosts file.

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint

[siljaline]

Blocking Unwanted Parasites (et al) with a Hosts file;
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

HTH
Silj

--
siljaline

MS - MVP Windows (IE/OE) 2003/04 AH-VSOP
________________________________________
Security Tools Updates
http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=31

(Reply to group, as return address
is invalid - that we may all benefit)