vagrant-dns

vagrant-dns allows you to configure a dns-server managing a development subdomain. It works much like pow, but manages Vagrant machines.

Installation

$ vagrant plugin install vagrant-dns

Usage

In addition to your networking config, configure a toplevel domain and a hostname for your machine. Optionally, configure a set of free matching patterns. Global configuration options can be given through the VagrantDNS::Config object:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  #...

  config.dns.tld = "dev"

  config.vm.hostname = "machine"

  config.dns.patterns = [/^.*mysite.dev$/, /^.*myothersite.dev$/]

  config.vm.network :private_network, ip: "33.33.33.60"
end

# optional
VagrantDNS::Config.logger = Logger.new("dns.log")

Then, register the DNS server as a resolver:

$ vagrant dns --install

On OS X, this will create a file /etc/resolver/dev, which tells OS X to resolve the TLD .dev by using the nameserver given in this file. You will have to rerun --install every time a tld is added.

You can delete this file by running:

$ vagrant dns --uninstall

To also delete the created config file for this TLD (~/.vagrant.d/tmp/dns/resolver/dev in our example) run:

$ vagrant dns --purge

Then, run the DNS server:

$ vagrant dns --start

And test it:

$ scutil --dns
...
resolver #8
  domain   : dev
  nameserver[0] : 127.0.0.1
  port     : 5300
...
$ dscacheutil -q host -a name test.machine.dev
name: test.machine.dev
ip_address: 33.33.33.10

You can now reach the server under the given domain.

Note: Mac OS X is quite different from Linux regarding DNS resolution. As a result, do not use dig or nslookup, but dscacheutil instead. Read this article for more information.

Note: Chrome users could still encounter problems resolving hosts in the development subdomain(s). If this is the case, make sure to turn of the Built-in Asynchronous DNS client. The built-in DNS client not handling split DNS is reported.

Finally, stop the server using:

$ vagrant dns --stop

The DNS server will start automatically once the first VM is started.

VM options

vm.dns.tld: Set the tld for the given virtual machine. No default.
vm.dns.tlds: Set multiple tlds. Default: [tld]
vm.dns.patterns: A list of domain patterns to match. Defaults to [/^.*{host_name}.{tld}$/]

Global Options

VagrantDNS::Config.listen: an Array of Arrays describing interfaces to bind to. Defaults to [[:udp, "127.0.0.1", 5300]].
VagrantDNS::Config.auto_run: (re)start and reconfigure the server every time a machine is started. On by default.

Issues

A records only
no ipv6 support
OS X only (please read: Platform Support before ranting about this).
Not visible inside the box

njam / vagrant-dns