How to change the hosts file on android [closed]

Question

I have successfully rooted my Samsung Galaxy Mini (android 2.2.1) and thought, that I could change anything (as root usually can).

I would like to change the hosts file on the android, to include some local addresses. However, I still get the message that I do not have permission to do that. I tried following options:

1. adb push /path/to/my/new/hosts /system/etc ... and I got the response Read-only file system.

2. directly in the shell on the phone. But this didn't work either. I can do su in the console, but cannot change the file.

Isn't it strange, that as super user I am not allowed to change some files?

Answer 1

You have root, but you still need to remount /system to be read/write

$ adb shell
$ su
$ mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

Go here for more information: Mount a filesystem read-write.

Answer 2

adb shell
su
mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

This assumes your /system is yaffs2 and that it's at /dev/block/mtdblock3 the easier/better way to do this on most Android phones is:

adb shell
su
mount -o remount,rw /system

Done. This just says remount /system read-write, you don't have to specify filesystem or mount location.

Answer 3

That didn't really work in my case - i.e. in order to overwrite hosts file you have to follow it's directions, ie:

./emulator -avd myEmulatorName -partition-size 280

and then in other term window (pushing new hosts file /tmp/hosts):

./adb remount
./adb push /tmp/hosts /system/etc

Answer 4

Probably the easiest way would be use this app Hosts Editor . You need to have root