archive-resolver

Fixes DNS-based access blocks to archive.today and its mirrors on macOS.

The problem

archive.today intentionally denies requests from users whose DNS resolves through certain providers — most notably Cloudflare 1.1.1.1. The dispute is over EDNS Client Subnet: archive.today's operator uses it for load balancing; Cloudflare refuses to send it on privacy grounds. The result is that anyone using Cloudflare DNS gets connection errors on every archive.today domain.

The fix

macOS supports per-domain DNS resolver overrides via files in /etc/resolver/. This script creates one file per mirror domain, routing those domains through a public nameserver (Google DNS 8.8.8.8 by default) while leaving all other DNS traffic alone.

Mirror domains

The mirror list is in mirrors.txt, updated monthly by a GitHub Actions workflow that reads the Archive.today Wikipedia article. Current mirrors:

Domain	Role
archive.today	Primary
archive.fo	Mirror
archive.is	Mirror (deprecated for new links, still active)
archive.li	Mirror
archive.md	Mirror
archive.ph	Mirror
archive.vn	Mirror

Requirements

• macOS 10.6+ (any version with /etc/resolver support)
• sudo / root access (for install/uninstall only)
• curl and python3 (both ship with macOS)

Quick install

git clone https://github.com/smartwatermelon/archive-resolver.git
cd archive-resolver
sudo ./install.sh

Usage

./install.sh --update-mirrors        Update mirrors.txt from Wikipedia (no root needed)
sudo ./install.sh                    Install / update resolver files
sudo ./install.sh --uninstall        Remove all managed resolver files

Options:
  -m, --update-mirrors   Fetch current mirror list from Wikipedia and update mirrors.txt
  -y, --yes              Non-interactive: skip confirmation prompts
  -n, --nameserver IP    Nameserver for archive domains (default: 8.8.8.8)
  -f, --no-fetch         Use local mirrors.txt; skip fetching from GitHub
  -d, --dry-run          Show planned changes without applying them
  -u, --uninstall        Remove all resolver files managed by archive-resolver
  -h, --help             Show this message

Examples

# Standard install / update (fetches latest mirrors.txt from GitHub)
sudo ./install.sh

# Preview what would change
sudo ./install.sh --dry-run

# Update mirrors.txt from Wikipedia, then install
./install.sh --update-mirrors && sudo ./install.sh --no-fetch

# Preview mirror list changes without writing anything
./install.sh --update-mirrors --dry-run

# Use alternate Google DNS server
sudo ./install.sh --nameserver 8.8.4.4

# Offline install (uses bundled mirrors.txt)
sudo ./install.sh --no-fetch

# Remove everything this script created
sudo ./install.sh --uninstall

How it works

1. Reads mirrors.txt from this repository (or the local copy with --no-fetch).
2. Writes /etc/resolver/archive.today with nameserver 8.8.8.8.
3. Creates symlinks for every other mirror domain pointing at that file. Changing the nameserver only requires updating one place.
4. Removes any /etc/resolver entries from a previous run that are no longer in the mirror list, using a manifest at /etc/resolver/.archive-resolver.
5. Runs dscacheutil -flushcache and reloads mDNSResponder.

Re-running produces the same result. New mirrors are added, removed mirrors are cleaned up.

Keeping the mirror list current

A workflow runs on the first Monday of every month. If the Wikipedia article's mirror list has changed, it opens a pull request with the updated mirrors.txt.

To pull an update locally without waiting for CI:

./install.sh --update-mirrors

This fetches the Wikipedia article and rewrites mirrors.txt if the mirror set has changed. Then run sudo ./install.sh --no-fetch to apply it.

Updating

sudo ./install.sh

Fetches the latest mirrors.txt from this repository and updates /etc/resolver to match. No script update needed.

Uninstalling

sudo ./install.sh --uninstall

Removes all resolver files this script created and flushes the DNS cache. System-wide DNS settings are not affected.

Verifying it works

# List managed resolver files
ls -la /etc/resolver/archive.*

# Check that archive.today resolves
dscacheutil -q host -a name archive.today

License

MIT — see LICENSE.md.