Risan Bagja

tutorial··1 min read

Setup Dnsmasq on macOS

Install the dnsmasq package:

Terminal window
$ brew install dnsmasq

Copy the example configuration file:

Terminal window
$ cp /usr/local/opt/dnsmasq/dnsmasq.conf.example /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

Open up the dnsmasq configuration file with your favorite editor:

Terminal window
$ vim /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

Right below the domain-ip mapping, add a configuration to map any .dev domain to our own localhost address 127.0.01.

Terminal window
# Add domains which you want to force to an IP address here.
# The example below send any host in double-click.net to a local
# web-server.
#address=/double-click.net/127.0.0.1
address=/dev/127.0.0.1

Next, we need to create an additional DNS query resolver. Create a /etc/resolver directory if it’s not already exists and create a dev file within it

Terminal window
sudo mkdir /etc/resolver
sudo vim /etc/resolver/dev

Now paste the following configuration within the new /etc/resolver/dev file:

Terminal window
nameserver 127.0.0.1
domain dev
search_order 1

Finally we need to restart the dnsmasq service like so:

Terminal window
$ sudo brew services start dnsmasq

Register dnsmasq to launch agent:

Terminal window
$ sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq.plist

Clear DNS cache:

Terminal window
$ dscacheutil -flushcache

Testing Your Installation

Testing DNS query with dig:

Terminal window
$ dig testing.testing.one.two.three.dev @127.0.0.1


# The result will look like this:
;; ANSWER SECTION:
testing.testing.one.two.three.dev. 0 IN  A  127.0.0.1

Testing the additional DNS query resolver with ping:

Terminal window
# Make sure you haven't broken your DNS.
ping -c 1 www.google.com
# Check that .dev names work
ping -c 1 this.is.a.test.dev
ping -c 1 iam.the.walrus.dev


# The result should look like this:
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss