Removing an entry from /etc/hosts on a Mac
I was testing a freshly deployed web site for a client the other day before they'd setup their DNS entry, and added the server to my Mac's /etc/hosts
file. It looked something like this:
208.75.85.73 www.clientsite.com
When I'd finished my testing I removed the entry from /etc/hosts
. On most Unix systems that's enough to eradicate all traces of your meddling, but not on the Mac. Any IP address that you add to /etc/hosts
gets cached by the operating system.
After a bit of poking around I discovered lookupd
. On Tiger you can flush the cache by entering this in the terminal:
$ lookupd -flushcache
On Leopard the lookupd
command has been replaced with dscacheutil
:
$ dscacheutil -flushcache
Update: The HostsWidget Dashboard widget appears to solve the same problem rather well.