wildcard DNS record on OS X in localhost development with dnsmasq

dnsmasq_setup_osx.md

wildcard DNS in localhost development

• install dnsmasq

$ brew install dnsmasq
   ...
$ cp /usr/local/opt/dnsmasq/dnsmasq.conf.example /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

• edit /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

address=/local/127.0.0.1

• start dnsmasq

$ sudo brew services start dnsmasq

• any time we change dnsmasq.conf we have to re-start dnsmasq:

$ sudo launchctl stop homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq
$ sudo launchctl start homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq

• For OS X to resolve requests from *.local to localhost we need to add a resolver:

$ sudo mkdir /etc/resolver
$ sudo touch /etc/resolver/local

• edit /etc/resolver/local

nameserver 127.0.0.1

• re-start the computer to enable the resolver

=== REFERENCES

• Using Dnsmasq for local development on OS X - Passing Curiosity
• Using Dnsmasq Configure Wildcard DNS Record on Mac | Ri Xu Online
• unix - In my /etc/hosts/ file on Linux/OSX, how do I do a wildcard subdomain? - Server Fault
• hostname - Wildcard in /etc/hosts file - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange
• Mac OS Lion - Wildcard subdomain virtual host - Stack Overflow
• How to put wildcard entry into /etc/hosts? - Stack Overflow

@hauleth
Using *.localhost or *.test is nearly the same, with few small differences:

1. test is a bit shorter - so it's somewhat a plus.
2. When using localhost as TLD, and accessing it from other machine on the same network, it causes some conflicts with other local machines.