Mac OS X Lion resets my hosts file automatically

Question

I'm using Mac OX X 10.7.4. I changed my /private/etc/hosts file, but when I restarted my computer, my change is gone, like it was reset by the system.

Has anybody else encounter this problem? How did you resolve it?

Answer 1

Are you using Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client? It seems to overwrite /private/etc/hosts with /private/etc/hosts.ac.

See

• /etc/hosts getting reset in Lion
• How to make changes to Mac /etc/hosts permanent?

Answer 2

Are you using sudo? you need root privileges to modify system files. Try

sudo nano /etc/hosts

sudo nano /private/etc/hosts

If you are using AnyConnect then check this /etc/hosts getting reset in Lion