How To Install hostfiles on Kali Linux

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install hostfiles on Kali Linux.

What is hostfiles

hostfiles is:

hostfiles is a command-line tool which will read the hostfile fragments specified to be enabled from /etc/hostfiles/<fragment_name> and add them to /etc/hosts.

It will remove any fragments from /etc/hosts that are specified to be disabled.

There are three methods to install hostfiles on Kali Linux. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install hostfiles Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install hostfiles using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install hostfiles

Install hostfiles Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install hostfiles using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install hostfiles

Install hostfiles Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude on Kali Linux first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Kali Linux. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install hostfiles using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install hostfiles

How To Uninstall hostfiles on Kali Linux

To uninstall only the hostfiles package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove hostfiles

Uninstall hostfiles And Its Dependencies

To uninstall hostfiles and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Kali Linux, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove hostfiles

Remove hostfiles Configurations and Data

To remove hostfiles configuration and data from Kali Linux we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge hostfiles

Remove hostfiles configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove hostfiles configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge hostfiles

Dependencies

hostfiles have the following dependencies:

• libhostfile-manager-perl
• libterm-clui-perl
• perl

References

• hostfiles website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install hostfiles package on Kali Linux using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.