eejit Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Hi there. At home I bypass adverts and popups online by making my hosts file divert those sites to 0.0.0.0. It's a common trick which most of you probably use as well, but if you haven't heard of it before the details can be found here. I've tried to implement this in the school too, but it doesn't work. It looks like the hosts file is ignored when you join a domain. I presume it's because the DNS server takes a higher priority. Is there some way to incorporate the entries in my hosts file into DNS or somewhere else that will take account of them? There must be a way, but I can't find it.
Dos_Box Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 What do you have running on your network, server\desktop OS, proxy, AD etc?
eejit Posted June 24, 2005 Author Posted June 24, 2005 Sorry, We have Windows 2003 servers with AD and XP clients. We have an ISA2004 box as a proxy/firewall and there's probably somewhere to do it in there if I could find it.
ChrisH Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 I believe the order should be: Cache Host File DNS Server As you would expect. But I have seen a similar thread to this before on Mark Minasi's forum and people were finding this wasnt always the case.
ChrisH Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Just checked and what I said wasnt quite true. The subject I was thinking of was local name resolution where WINS plays a part as well.
Geoff Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 The hosts file isn't checked when your using a proxy as the DNS resolution is done by the proxy rather than your local machine. If you wish to block stuff then the proxy is the correct place to do it anyway. ISA server isn't something I've used (Squid here) but I expect there is some way to add ad/cookie/etc blocking to it?
eejit Posted June 24, 2005 Author Posted June 24, 2005 Chris, even though you may have been looking for the wrong thing, what you posted above IS what I would expect. You would imagine that the machine would look locally first before querying the server, but doesn't appear to how it works.
Geoff Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 nope, because thats not how proxy servers work. The browser looks up the proxies IP address and then passes the URL vertibam to the proxy server. Doing anything else would break far too many things, filtering for example.
ChrisH Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Geoff is right I just tried it. I added two entries to the hosts file 192.168.0.1 http://www.google.co.uk 192.168.0.1 http://www.yahoo.com P:\>ipconfig /flushdns Windows IP Configuration Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache. P:\>ipconfig /displaydns Windows IP Configuration 1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa ---------------------------------------- Record Name . . . . . : 1.0.0.127.in-addr.arpa. Record Type . . . . . : 12 Time To Live . . . . : 529581 Data Length . . . . . : 4 Section . . . . . . . : Answer PTR Record . . . . . : localhost 1.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa ---------------------------------------- Record Name . . . . . : 1.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. Record Type . . . . . : 12 Time To Live . . . . : 529581 Data Length . . . . . : 4 Section . . . . . . . : Answer PTR Record . . . . . : http://www.google.co.uk Record Name . . . . . : 1.0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. Record Type . . . . . : 12 Time To Live . . . . : 529581 Data Length . . . . . : 4 Section . . . . . . . : Answer PTR Record . . . . . : http://www.yahoo.com http://www.yahoo.com ---------------------------------------- Record Name . . . . . : http://www.yahoo.com Record Type . . . . . : 1 Time To Live . . . . : 529581 Data Length . . . . . : 4 Section . . . . . . . : Answer A (Host) Record . . . : 192.168.0.1 http://www.google.co.uk ---------------------------------------- Record Name . . . . . : http://www.google.co.uk Record Type . . . . . : 1 Time To Live . . . . : 529581 Data Length . . . . . : 4 Section . . . . . . . : Answer A (Host) Record . . . : 192.168.0.1 localhost ---------------------------------------- Record Name . . . . . : localhost Record Type . . . . . : 1 Time To Live . . . . : 529581 Data Length . . . . . : 4 Section . . . . . . . : Answer A (Host) Record . . . : 127.0.0.1 When I try them both they bring up the websites they should do and not the IIS page from one of my servers.
Geoff Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Altering the hosts file on the ISA server is the lazy way to fix this.
tarquel Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Oddly, and a slight digression here, but I've never needed to touch the hosts file except to remove invalid/bad entries. I just have the vanilla one - and anything that Spybot or other Spyware programs plug in and thats that. No problems. Why do you use it then? Some fancy stuff I dont know no doubt lol Cheers, Nath
StewartKnight Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 I think you're making this too difficult. The SP1 for 2003 server includes the ability to block pop-ups on the clients, which I've employed with no problem here. (and if I can do it, anyone can!) Stewart Knight Network Manager Appleby Grammar School
tarquel Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 ...and for SP2 in XP (incase ya didnt know lol ) Yep - it works well and with a bit o GP, you can lock it down to so they cant allow the pop-up window or turn the feature off, etc. Cheers, Nath
StewartKnight Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Just read on the the register that SP1 for 2003 will be out next month..... so what the hell have I got on my system!!!! Stewart Knight Network Manager Appleby Grammar School
RobC Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Stewart, SP1 for 2003 is already out & you can download it from Microsoft, however it won't begin to be distributed via Automatic Updates until July 26th, or later if you opt to use the Download Blocker (like the one used for XP SP2).
Geoff Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 no no no. Thats SP2 for W2k3 server which is currently in beta. SP1 is already out.
Mano Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Hi all, Has anyone experienced any trouble with SP1 on 2003. Our LEA has told us to wait a bit so they can properly test it and see what flaws and bugs it brings.
ChrisH Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 A lot of us have put in on with no problems at all. Some people are even claiming it's running alot faster as a result.
tarquel Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Hi Mano and welcome Not that I have come across but if you use any server company tools i.e. Insight Manager for HP Servers for example, you'll need to update the software/util etc Check with the server site beforehand (just in case) as some "may" need a bios update or similar first. As far as usage and other problems, I dont think so - I haven't updates our SIMS .net server yet so I dont know if it would cause any problems, but there has been updates/patches to SIMS .net since the 2k3 SP1 release so I imagine that there wont be a problem with that. I would say the firewall addition may cause a problem - depending on the setup - but if you are installing it in 2003, then it doesn't turn on. It will only be on by default if you have slipstreamed it into the 2003 CD Cheers, N.
Geoff Posted June 24, 2005 Posted June 24, 2005 Some of the printer drivers frazzled but thats about it.
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