Hosts EDitor, it will add/update/delete host entries for you

Arjen Wiersma

Last update: Nov 2, 2022

Related tags

Overview

Host EDitor

A command-line tool to easily manage you hosts file.

View Demo · Report Bug · Request Feature

Table of Contents

About The Project
- Built With
Getting Started
- Prerequisites
- Installation
Usage
Roadmap
Contributing
License
Contact
Acknowledgments

About The Project

hed allows you to manipulate your hosts file from the command-line. By providing safe and easy commands you can add new hosts and aliases to your environment.

This tool was inspired by my students to whom I teach a Basic Cyber Security class. In this class we utilize Hack The Box as a learning platform and most students struggle with editing the hosts file when they get started. To make this easier for them I wrote a tool that gives them a safe means of adding and removing hosts in this file.

The tool is to be used as a regular user, it will elevate privileges when it requires it by calling sudo and respawning the process.

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Built With

Rust

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Getting Started

Installation

Using `cargo`

If you have the rust package manager cargo installed you can simply install hed by running

cargo install hed

It will pull in the latest version.

Manual installation

Create your local bin directory
```
mkdir ~/.local/bin
```

Download the latest binary release

wget https://github.com/credmp/hed/releases/latest/download/hed -O ~/.local/bin/hed

Make it executable
```
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/hed
```

Ensure the bin directory is in your path

echo export PATH=\$PATH:~/.local/bin >> ~/.zshrc # if you use zsh
echo export PATH=\$PATH:~/.local/bin >> ~/.bashrc # if you use bash

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Usage

View the current hostsfile

hed show will color print the current hosts file.

hed show

Output:

#                    This is a comment
127.0.0.1	localhost	
::1	localhost	
127.0.1.1	pop-os.localdomain	pop-os

Add a new entry

hed add example.com 127.1.1.1

Will add the following line to the hosts file.

127.1.1.1	example.com

Add a subdomain

hed add demo.example.com

Will update the hosts file to add the subdomain to the parent domain as an alias

127.1.1.1	example.com	demo.example.com

Remove a hostname

hed delete demo.example.com

If it is the primary name , the shortest alias will be chosen as new name for the host entry. If there are no aliases, the entire record is deleted.

hed delete 127.1.1.1

Will remove the entire record even if there are many aliases defined.

Testing

Use the --file parameter to test the features of hed on a file that is not your hosts file.

hed --file test.txt add example.com 127.0.0.1

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Roadmap

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features (and known issues).

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Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

If you have a suggestion that would make this better, please fork the repo and create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement". Don't forget to give the project a star! Thanks again!

Fork the Project
Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
Write your beautiful code
Ensure test coverage did not decrease (cargo tarpaulin --verbose --all-features --workspace --timeout 120 --out Lcov)
Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
Open a Pull Request

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License

Distributed under the GPLv3 License. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

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Contact

Arjen Wiersma - @credmp - My website

Project Link: https://github.com/credmp/hed

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Acknowledgments

My students for showing me that editing a hosts file is not that easy.

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Comments

:gear: Remove debian control files

I tried to include the tool into Debian. The process is horribly archaic and not very friendly to first time users. The approach I took based on the documentation turned out to be wrong for rust based applications. Will try again later.

opened by credmp 1
:bookmark: Release hed on crates.io
:books: Add cli as a keyword for crates.io

:arrow_up: Upgrade dependencies

:bug: Fix license identifier in toml

:books: Add instructions to install using cargo
opened by credmp 1

Entries are double added if they already exist

Reproduce:

hed  --file ../samples/kali-default.txt add example.com 127.0.1.1
hed  --file ../samples/kali-default.txt add example.com 127.0.2.1

output is:

127.0.1.1	example.com	
127.0.2.1	example.com

while it should signal that example.com is already in the hosts file

bug good first issue

opened by credmp 1

When adding a host domain, optimize the hostentry

When adding example.com when a subdomain demo.example.com already exists, make the top level entry the name and move the subdomain to aliasses.

./hed --file test.txt show
Reading file test.txt
10.10.10.10	demo.example.com	
 ~/Downloads $ ./hed --file test.txt add example.com 
Reading file test.txt
Error: 
   0: Could not add host, no parent domain to resolve it.

Location:
   src/main.rs:177

Backtrace omitted.
Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=1 environment variable to display it.
Run with RUST_BACKTRACE=full to include source snippets.

bug good first issue

opened by credmp 0

Include in Debian
This package should be part of the debian repositories.

Follow this guide for the required steps:

https://blog.hackeriet.no/packaging-a-rust-project-for-debian/
opened by credmp 0

feature request: backup/restore

Request to add a feature to be able to backup and restore the hosts file using hed.

Examples:

$ hed backup
backup /etc/hosts made to ~/hosts.bak
$ hed restore
restored /etc/hosts from ~/hosts.bak

$ hed backup /tmp/x
backup /etc/hosts made to /tmp/x
$ hed restore /tmp/x
restored /etc/hosts from /tmp/x

enhancement

opened by amkuipers 1

feature request: ad blocker

Enable feature that hed can download an add-blocker list (like pi hole) and appends it to the hosts file.

hed adblock https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts

Advanced: mark beginning/end of the list with a magic comment so that the hed tool can also remove this list easy.

Advanced: have some preconfigured url's for blocker lists
enhancement

opened by amkuipers 3
images logo is missing

The README.md refers the logo file at the top and that image is missing from the images folder.

In case there is no logo. I propose the following; image search for "route sign icon" and use a route-66 icon and instead of the number use hed.
good first issue

opened by amkuipers 1

Releases(0.1.8)

0.1.8(Aug 15, 2022)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(2.40 MB)
hed_0.1.8_amd64.deb(685.39 KB)
0.1.7(May 26, 2022)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(2.35 MB)
hed_0.1.7_amd64.deb(674.92 KB)
0.1.6(Nov 14, 2021)

:gear: updated dependencies to stable versions
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(2.32 MB)
hed_0.1.6_amd64.deb(663.01 KB)
0.1.5(Oct 25, 2021)
:bookmark: Release 0.1.5

:wrench: Features

Parent domains can be added when child domains exist

:bug: Bugfixes

different parent domains with same suffix were recognized as resolvable (#14)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(2.31 MB)
hed_0.1.5_amd64.deb(665.17 KB)
0.1.4(Oct 12, 2021)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(2.31 MB)
hed_0.1.4_amd64.deb(663.97 KB)
0.1.3(Oct 10, 2021)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(2.31 MB)
hed_0.1.3_amd64.deb(664.39 KB)
0.1.2(Oct 9, 2021)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(2.31 MB)
hed_0.1.2_amd64.deb(664.56 KB)

0.1.1(Oct 9, 2021)

2021-10-04 Arjen Wiersma [email protected]

* src/main.rs: initial tool version - it only adds hosts now and
will show the current file

Messed up the release building, new version

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(2.31 MB)

0.1.0(Oct 9, 2021)

2021-10-04 Arjen Wiersma [email protected]

* src/main.rs: initial tool version - it only adds hosts now and
will show the current file

Messed up the release building, new version

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(5.97 MB)

0.1(Oct 9, 2021)

2021-10-04 Arjen Wiersma [email protected]

* src/main.rs: initial tool version - it only adds hosts now and
will show the current file

Messed up the release building, new version

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(5.97 MB)

0.0.1.2-alpha(Oct 4, 2021)

2021-10-04 Arjen Wiersma [email protected]

* src/main.rs: initial tool version - it only adds hosts now and
will show the current file

Messed up the release building, new version

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
hed(5.95 MB)

0.0.1.1-alpha(Oct 4, 2021)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)

Owner

Arjen Wiersma

GitHub https://www.arjenwiersma.nl

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