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Daniel
Asked: 2011-05-09 21:25:07 +0800 CST

Use hosts file to support DNS server on Windows 2003 Server

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Is it possible to make the Windows 2003 Server Dns Server lookup domains in the hosts file also? This would be nice to implement a corporate block list for all those ad sites, and for having a central place to configure them.

And the hosts file can be regulary updated from [http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt winhelp2002], so I don't have to enter 1000 sites manually.

windows-server-2003 domain-name-system hosts-file

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    No. The hosts file is used for resolving stuff on the local server only. It has nothing to do with serving DNS.

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  2. As above: No. Not only is a hosts file the wrong tool for this job, the DNS itself is the wrong tool for this job. Blocking/overriding the translation from domain names to addresses blocks it for every protocol, not just for HTTP. (There are several other problems that it causes, besides.) To deal with an HTTP issue like this, one must work at the HTTP level.

    Either set up a proxy HTTP server, that everyone uses and that strips out all WWW page requests to advertising sites, or have everyone use a proxy-autoconfiguration file in their WWW browsers that does the same thing. There are several PAC files publicly available that will redirect WWW browsers away from advertising WWW pages.

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