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adamfishercox · Sep 6, 2007, 08:51 PM

Is there any way I can block myself from a certain website? The reason is, I have a friend coming over who is very cool if he's not on RuneScape. And if he can get on RuneScape, he is on RuneScape... So I'd like to be able to block my account from RuneScape so he cannot get on, but we can go to other sites and check email if need be.

Is there a way to do this?

besson3c · Sep 6, 2007, 08:53 PM

Sure, block access to the site with firewall rule(s).

adamfishercox · Sep 6, 2007, 08:55 PM

Thanks!

besson3c · Sep 6, 2007, 09:52 PM

Check out Brickhouse, it's a GUI that will help you create firewall rules if you are not comfortable with the ipfw syntax. Note that several major sites are served off of a pool of IP addresses that are load balanced, often served in a round robin fashion. Make sure you get all of the IPs that belong to the site... According to my DNS lookup, I'm seeing the following IPs:

runescape.com has address 69.31.109.4
runescape.com has address 80.64.4.171
runescape.com has address 82.133.85.216
runescape.com has address 85.133.44.251
runescape.com has address 168.75.179.75
runescape.com has address 209.249.24.6
runescape.com has address 216.180.254.134
runescape.com has address 64.37.71.203
runescape.com has address 64.90.181.244
runescape.com has address 65.39.250.68
runescape.com has address 66.151.43.152
runescape.com has address 69.22.158.227

mduell · Sep 6, 2007, 10:31 PM

Unless your friend is particularly savvy, you don't need to bother with firewall rules or blocking by IP. Just add an entry to your hosts file (it's in /private/etc/):

127.0.0.1 runescape.com

besson3c · Sep 6, 2007, 10:48 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Unless your friend is particularly savvy, you don't need to bother with firewall rules or blocking by IP. Just add an entry to your hosts file (it's in /private/etc/):

127.0.0.1 runescape.com

Yeah! This is a much better idea

After doing this, do a sudo lookupd -flushcache to flush your DNS cache so that this change is picked up.

besson3c · Sep 7, 2007, 01:43 AM

You should actually have the runescape.com site redirect to a porn site, or something really goofy, weird, or anything else that will really catch him off guard!

adamfishercox · Sep 7, 2007, 02:39 PM

He'd just stay at the porn

(I joke, I joke...)

adamfishercox · Sep 7, 2007, 08:50 PM

Where is "private/ etc.?"

I don't see it anywhere.

Chuckit · Sep 7, 2007, 08:53 PM

It's hiding. In Finder, choose Go to Folder from the Go menu, and type "/private/etc" (without the quotes, but with the slashes in the same place).

besson3c · Sep 7, 2007, 09:00 PM

You actually don't need the private, it is a symlink to /etc....

jackster12 · Sep 10, 2007, 04:46 AM

Hey there,

This looks like it might be an answer to a problem I see commonly posted here... but I need some newbie clarification... a lot of us have been plagued by the drivecleaner.com redirect that takes over Safari, resizes the window, and forces you to go to their site.

I found a terminal command elsewhere in these forums:
sudo ipfw add deny tcp from DriveCleaner - Home to any

I've since applied that and haven't had the chance to see if it works, but I'm concerned that (a) using ipfw will somehow override all my other firewall settings (someone said on here that it would and (b) that you're suggesting something above that might be easier and more efficient, but I just don't understand what you're talking about.

Can you explain? Thanks!

besson3c · Sep 10, 2007, 01:08 PM

OS X uses ipfw as its firewall (as does FreeBSD and possibly other BSD based OSes). This firewall works off of a rule set, which is a text file containing your firewall rules. The rule you have posted above is a valid rule you can expect to find in a ruleset.

However, the one thing missing from this rule is its prefix... Within a ruleset, there is a number assigned to each rule, e.g.:

Code:
0010 ipfw ...
0020 ipfw ...

The lower number rules will override conflicting higher number rules. If you are using the OS X firewall, you can see your current ruleset by typing:

sudo ipfw list

To add this rule to your ruleset, you will either need to locate the text file and add this to the rule set (and off the top of my head I'm not sure where this file is located in OS X), or find some sort of rule editor. The one included in the Sharing pane of OS X is extremely basic and will not allow you to add a rule like this. I suggest taking a look at Brickhouse if you aren't comfortable with editing your own rules, as it ought to help you add this rule to your ruleset.

mduell · Sep 10, 2007, 05:16 PM

I think the /etc/hosts based approach would be easier and just as effective for drivecleaner.

besson3c · Sep 10, 2007, 05:18 PM

I agree whole heartedly.

adamfishercox · 06:02 PM

OK, so in hosts I see that it says dont change the entry... should I heed it's warning?

adamfishercox · Sep 10, 2007, 06:02 PM

and I tried and it wouldn't save.

besson3c · Sep 10, 2007, 07:13 PM

adamfishercox: you need to be root to save the file... I suggest doing a sudo nano /etc/hosts

You really should learn about this file and its usage. If you have any specific problems, we also need more information about the nature of the problem.

adamfishercox · Sep 10, 2007, 07:15 PM

yeah i'm not into the whole Terminal scene... I think I'll just discourage him from going to RuneScape... the firewall seems too much work.

Scott-G · Sep 11, 2007, 10:30 AM

Some shareware that may help:

Hostal

"Hostal supports both host mapping and host blocking."

I don't know if it has any limitation without paying for it, but you could give it a try.