hostsfile provides an LWRP for managing your hosts file using Chef.

At this time, you must have a Unix-based machine. This could easily be adapted for Windows machines. Please submit a Pull Request if you wish to add Windows support.

This LWRP comes equipped with 4 actions:

Creates a new hosts file entry. If an entry already exists, it will be overwritten by this one.

hostsfile_entry '1.2.3.4' do
  hostname 'example.com'
  action :create
end

This will create an entry like this:

1.2.3.4          example.com

Create a new hosts file entry, only if one does not already exist for the given IP address. If one exists, this does nothing.

hostsfile_entry '1.2.3.4' do
  hostname 'example.com'
  action :create_if_missing
end

Create a new hosts file entry if not found. If exists appends given hostname to aliases.

hostsfile_entry '1.2.3.4' do
  hostname 'www.example.com'
  action :create_or_update
end

Updates the given hosts file entry. Does nothing if the entry does not exist.

hostsfile_entry '1.2.3.4' do
  hostname 'example.com'
  comment 'Update by Chef'
  action :update
end

This will create an entry like this:

1.2.3.4           example # Updated by Chef

Removes an entry from the hosts file. Does nothing if the entry does not exist.

hostsfile_entry '1.2.3.4' do
  action :remove
end

This will remove the entry for 1.2.3.4.

Download or install this cookbook from the community site:

$ knife cookbook site install hostsfile

Then, simply include this recipe and you'll be granted access to this LWPR:

# your_recipe.rb
include_recipe 'hostsfile'

1. Fork the project
2. Create a feature branch corresponding to you change
3. Commit and test thoroughly
4. Create a Pull Request on github
   • ensure you add a detailed description of your changes

Authors: Seth Vargo (@sethvargo)

Copyright 2012, CustomInk, LLC