/etc/hosts file loses changes on OS X restart

I'm doing web development on Mac OS X (10.6) and to speed this up created a few virtual hosts with short, easy-to-type names like sandbox.drupal7.loc and gwwc.drupal7.loc. I did so following the instructions at http://drupal.org/node/463262 (which involve editing /etc/hosts among other things). Initially this worked but at some unknown point, it has stopped working.

Viewing /etc/hosts shows that the following line that I needed has been deleted:

127.0.0.1       localhost gwwc.drupal7.local drupal6.local newni.loc

Somehow it had reverted to an earlier version of the file, containing (among other lines):

127.0.0.1       localhost
192.168.0.18    itdb pat
127.0.0.1       newni.loc
208.89.50.22    jura

The non 127 IPs are not related to my testing issues and they're just there as an example. I can add back my line to the file and the changes stay until restart, but these changes are not surviving a reboot.

When I add back drupal6.local to the 127.0.0.1 line in /etc/hosts fixed things that session 'work' in that it doesn't yield 'Server not found' but it doesn't reach my non-default ghost as configured in /Applications/MAMP/conf/apache/httpd.conf

Could this be somehow related? Is there a robust solution to hard coding entries in /etc/hosts on Snow Leopard?

tog22

Posted 2011-11-28T17:39:22.907

Reputation: 725

Would this get a better reponse on another StackExchange site? If so, please move it moderators – tog22 – 2011-11-30T16:14:23.160

Migrating to Super User on your request – Kyle Cronin – 2011-12-01T14:53:17.410

Couldn't you just add the additional host names to that second 127.0.0.1 line? Sounds a lot like some system service restoring the single 127.0.0.1 localhost line if changed to prevent things from breaking. – Daniel Beck – 2012-01-07T21:35:49.623

possible duplicate of /etc/hosts getting reset in Lion — the dscl workaround might work for you.

– Daniel Beck – 2012-01-07T21:45:10.593

I also stumbled upon a blog post than mentioned problems when you saved /etc/hosts with the wrong line endings. Make sure it's all Unix LF, not CR. – Daniel Beck – 2012-01-07T21:45:48.640

Daniel, thanks for pointing me to that post - it pointed me to the answer given below about making the changes in all hosts.* files in /private/etc/ – tog22 – 2012-01-20T14:27:25.570

1@tog22 You're welcome. Note that you need to prefix user names with an @ so they receive a notification about your comments (like I just did), if they're not author of the post you're commenting on. Otherwise they might never see your comment. – Daniel Beck – 2012-01-20T14:37:40.690

/etc is a symbolic link to /private/etc, so that doesn't make a difference. – Daniel Beck – 2012-01-07T21:32:32.687

Fair enough, didn't catch that one. You did edit it with root privileges though, right? – Marvin Pinto – 2012-01-07T21:36:11.957

Yes, I have explicitly edited /private/etc/hosts (always as sudo) with the same problem. – tog22 – 2012-01-18T14:49:35.570

/etc/hosts file loses changes on OS X restart

Answers