update_hosts_file.sh

#!/bin/bash

remote_hosts_file="http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt"
hosts_file_loc="/etc/hosts"

main() {
        printf "Downloading file...\n"
        wget -q -O /tmp/hosts.new $remote_hosts_file

        printf "Removing windows line breaks...\n"
        dos2unix -q /tmp/hosts.new /tmp/hosts.new

        printf "Removing commented lines...\n"
        egrep -v '^#' /tmp/hosts.new > /tmp/hosts.tmp

        printf "Removing lines before hosts entries...\n"
        sed -n -i '/0\.0\.0\.0 /,$p' /tmp/hosts.tmp

        printf "Performing malice check to see if anything points to anything other than 0.0.0.0...\n"
        if [[ $(awk '{print $1}' /tmp/hosts.tmp | uniq) != '0.0.0.0' ]]; then
                printf "File has been tampered with! Exiting!\n"
                exit 1
        fi

        # Replace 0.0.0.0 with 255.255.255.0
        # sed -i -e 's/0.0.0.0/255.255.255.0/g' /tmp/hosts.tmp

        # Copy user's current hosts to ${hosts_file_loc}.initial
        # (if initial run of this script)
        if [ ! -r ${hosts_file_loc}.initial ]; then
                cp ${hosts_file_loc} ${hosts_file_loc}.initial
        fi

        printf "Current hosts file: $(wc -l ${hosts_file_loc} | awk '{print $1}') lines...\n"

        printf "Creating new ${hosts_file_loc} file with user's old hosts file and entries from new one...\n"
        cat ${hosts_file_loc}.initial > ${hosts_file_loc}
        printf "\n\n# Added on $(date)\n" >> ${hosts_file_loc}
        cat /tmp/hosts.tmp >> ${hosts_file_loc}

        printf "New hosts file: $(wc -l ${hosts_file_loc} | awk '{print $1}') lines...\n"

        printf "Removing tmp files...\n"
        rm /tmp/hosts*
}

main
exit 0

Hello there Captain Skyhawk. I use your hosts file updater. Thanks for that. I found a bugette. dos2unix isn't present in Mint 17.3 so also probably not in Ubuntu etc. Just a FYI. All the best, Temporary Pi.

No problem! I figured dos2unix was easy enough to install.