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I want to block some hosts in Ubuntu, so how could I edit hosts.deny file to block some hosts like example.com.

And one more thing I have installed dnsmasq in Ubuntu, so can I check the entries of the dns's cached by dnsmasq? If yes then how?

Thanks in advance.

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3 Answers 3

up vote 7 down vote accepted

hosts.deny example:

ALL: example.org

This denies all service to and example.org. For further information, take a look here: http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl5_hostsde.htm

dnsmasq -d should give you the cached entries but I'm not so sure about that.


To block an IP Address with iptables:

iptables -A INPUT -s -j DROP

to unblock:

iptables -D INPUT -s -j DROP
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dnsmasq -d :-> dnsmasq: failed to create listening socket: Address already in use –  codeomnitrix Jan 25 '11 at 6:46
nd i have done ALL: in hosts.deny file. But still this page is getting loaded in my browser. –  codeomnitrix Jan 25 '11 at 6:48
Hosts.deny blocks those IPs accessing services on your computer but you are accessing their server. You could use iptables or edit your /etc/hosts like this: –  Dayjay Jan 25 '11 at 7:00
then how to block the my computer user to access that server? –  codeomnitrix Jan 25 '11 at 7:04
hey can you please explain a bit more how to do that –  codeomnitrix Jan 25 '11 at 7:08

hosts.allow and hosts.deny are deprecated. They are used by TCP Wrappers, host-based access control, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_Wrapper

If you want to block access to a service, you need to find whether that service has been compiled with TCP Wrappers. I highly doubt that Ubuntu services still use TCP Wrappers.

The TCP Wrappers library is found in /lib/libwrap.so.0 If you want to check whether lighttpd (Web server) supports TCP Wrappers, run

> ldd /usr/sbin/lighttpd
    linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fff2a5ff000)
    libpcre.so.3 => /lib/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007f69af837000)
    libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f69af633000)
    libattr.so.1 => /lib/libattr.so.1 (0x00007f69af42d000)
    libssl.so.0.9.8 => /lib/libssl.so.0.9.8 (0x00007f69af1db000)
    libcrypto.so.0.9.8 => /lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8 (0x00007f69aee4b000)
    libfam.so.0 => /usr/lib/libfam.so.0 (0x00007f69aec42000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007f69ae8bf000)
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f69afa90000)
    libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x00007f69ae6a8000)
> _

It does not mention libwrap, so at least this service does not support TCP Wrappers, and will ignore /etc/hosts.{allow, deny}.

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If tcp wrappers are depreciated, what's the replacement? –  zaius Dec 13 '11 at 22:13

You want to use a firewall to block access to other sites. I believe ufw is intalled by default. The command man ufw should provide information on how to use it. Replace with the address you want to block.

The commands

sudo ufw enable
sudo ufw deny to
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