How to publish local domain names on the local network

domain-name-systeminternal-dnslocal

I'm developing several websites locally, each of them having its own pseudo-domain name, and its Apache VirtualHost:

mywebsite.localhost
images.mywebsite.localhost
anotherwebsite.localhost

I'd like to make these websites available to any computer on my local network, which would allow me to test my website on mobile devices (iOS).

Is there a way to "publish" a name such as mywebsite.localhost or mywebsite.local to my local network, so that these names would resolve to my computer's IP address for any computer on the network?

I don't think I can configure my ISP's router in any way to act as a DNS server.

While researching, I read about mDNS and Bonjour, but can't find if they are what I'm looking for, and even less how to make that work.

Any help appreciated!

Best Answer

.localhost is a reserved TLD so you'll want to change that so you don't run into issues.

One way to do this would be to run a DNS server or forwarder, such as dnsmasq, make sure all clients are using it and the propagate the zones with the mappings you're after. This adds quite a bit of overhead and can be problematic if it's not configured correctly.

Assuming you can control the applications domain names, a quick and easy option is xip.io with no configuration required.

e.g. your server is 192.168.0.23 point a client on the same network subnet to http://192.168.0.23.xip.io/ and it should work.

Related Solutions

Domain – Testing domains on intranet/local network

I'd agree with Womble's answer for most cases. Your comment to his answer, though, mentions simulating mail delivery for that domain. Entries in the "HOSTS" file act the same way as "A" records in DNS. If you need to "simulate" MX, SRV, or other types of records, though, you are going to have to setup a DNS server.

You can create zones for the domains you want to "simulate" in your BIND server. All the computers that use your DNS server will resolve the names in whatever domains you choose to make your server authoritative for however you configure them. Heh heh...

I quite like having an internal DNS server on the LAN. I enjoy creating zones for domains like "doubleclick.net" and putting in wildcard records that refer to an IP address of a web server on the LAN to return 404 errors in place of their ads.

DNSMasq – Setting Up DNSMasq for a Local Network

Refer to the DNSmasq documentation, especially the dnsmasq manpage and sample configuration file. The local keyword tells DNSmasq to perform those domain lookups with local data. This affects requests send to DNSmasq for foo.localnet and bar.localnet, for example. I don't think this is what you want.

# Add local-only domains here, queries in these domains are answered
# from /etc/hosts or DHCP only.
local=/localnet/

To force host/subdomain lookups to resolve to a specific address, you'd probably want to use the address keyword. The second example below should allow web1.devbox and web2.devbox and web73872.devbox to all resolve to the address specified.

# Add domains which you want to force to an IP address here.
# The example below send any host in doubleclick.net to a local
# webserver.
address=/doubleclick.net/127.0.0.1

# for your example
address=/devbox/192.168.3.99

I use DNSmasq at home to handle simple DNS stuff for my LAN; in that case, local and the associated domain and expand-hosts keywords are appropriate. The DNSmasq server is my primary nameserver, so all requests go through it; any nonlocal addresses are passed back to the ISP's nameserver. You might consider that configuration if possible.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Domain – Testing domains on intranet/local network

DNSMasq – Setting Up DNSMasq for a Local Network

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