editing the HOST file or DNS file

I'm having a problem where my firewall is blocking the naming for a specifice IP address (IE: email server "mail.ccc.com ".
I need to now use the static IP address in my email pgm to be able to access the email system.
I have users on Active Directory.
I heard that you can edit the "Host" file or "DNS file where i can put the static IP in as well as the name and the system will check both options.
How do you do that?
thanks.
Bill

 

If you search your Windows directory for a file called HOSTS, you should find the file there. The default information in the file shows the usage.

However, I'm surprised that your firewall is block a specific DNS request. Are you sure that is what is happening. I think more likely senarios are:

1. The firewall is blocking the IP address. You should be able to test this by entering the IP address in your e-mail client configuration rather than the mail server name. If access is still blocked, this is not a name resolution problem.
2. This is a symptom of a more general domain name problem: a typical one being that you are using the internet domain as your active directory domain. Out of the box, this will prevent internal users accessing external resources. So if you are using ccc.com as your active directory domain, you won't be able to access mail.ccc.com from internal clients until you tweak your internal DNS server.
3. Your firewall has a spam filter that is blocking that mail server. See if the spam filter has a white list and add the mail server to that.

None of these problems will be fixed by updating HOSTS.