use-dnsmasq-on-local-development.mkd

How To Use Dnsmasq on Local Development

Rationale

Access your local development servers by human-readable domain name instead of numerical IP without touching your /etc/hosts.

How To

• Install dnsmasq package via homebrew

brew install dnsmasq

• Copy config example into desired location

sudo cp $(brew list dnsmasq | grep dnsmasq.conf) /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

• Place other upstream DNS in /usr/local/etc/resolv.dnsmasq.conf.

sudo echo 'nameserver 8.8.8.8' > /usr/local/etc/resolv.dnsmasq.conf

• Use whatever as TLD for localhost development. Use any TLD, except .local. Add to the confuguration file /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf.

address=/whatever/127.0.0.1
resolv-file=/usr/local/etc/resolv.dnsmasq.conf

• Launch dnsmasq at startup.

sudo cp -fv $(brew list dnsmasq | grep dnsmasq.plist) /Library/LaunchDaemons/

To force reload dnsmasq use

sudo launchctl stop homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq && \
sudo launchctl start homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq

Testing

Now any domain on TLD whatever resolves to your localhost.

dig example.whatever @127.0.0.1 | grep -B1 example.whatever.

; <<>> DiG 9.8.5-P1 <<>> example.whatever @127.0.0.1
--
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;example.whatever.                   IN      A
--
;; ANSWER SECTION:
example.whatever.            0       IN      A       127.0.0.1

ping -c1 example.whatever

PING example.whatever (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.045 ms

--- example.whatever ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stdwhatever = 0.045/0.045/0.045/0.000 ms