VPN web site will not load on an Mac

Owned by Marc Echternach (Deactivated)
Last updated: Feb 19, 2020 by Davis,Andrew L
1 min read

Symptoms

When attempting to visit https://vpn.louisville.edu on an Apple Mac running macOS / OS X the web site will not load. Please first check that "https://" is in the URL.


Cause

Hosts file was not properly modified by some other software.

Resolution

Open Terminal.

Run "sudo nano /etc/hosts"

You may need to enter an admin password.

In the text file that opens, find any lines that have "vpn.louisville.edu" and delete them. Save and close the file.

Then reset the DNS cache:

Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache in OS X v10.10.4 or later:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache in OS X v10.10 through v10.10.3:

sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache

Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache in OS X v10.9.5 and earlier:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache in OS X v10.6 through v10.6.8:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

Attempt to access https://vpn.louisville.edu again. A reboot may be required for the changes to fully take effect.