While I was working with PHP, I used to setup .dev domain with Apache VirtualHost for my development. But after I moved to Ruby on Rails, I never used it since Rails were not using apache server and port 80.
In the begining I tried to set domain with /etc/hosts, but I came to know that hosts file won’t accept PORT. They only map IP address. But now I managed to find a way to setup .dev domain for rails development.
You can either setup this manually or use invoker gem.
1. Manual Setup
To setup .dev domain, the prerequisites are dnsmasq and rinetd. dnsmasq is a DNS subsystem provides a local DNS server for the network, with forwarding of all query types to upstream recursive DNS servers and cacheing of common record types. rinetd is a internet redirection server rinetd redirects TCP connections from one IP address and port to another
Installation
On ubuntu use apt-get to install both dnsmasq & rinetd
sudo apt-get install dnsmasq rinetd
Configure dnsmasq
create /etc/dnsmasq.d/dev-tld and add the below configuration into it.
local=/dev/
address=/dev/127.0.0.1
Configure rinetd
The configuration file for rinetd resides at /etc/rinetd.conf. The syntax to add
redirection rule is
<to ip> <to port> <from ip> <from port>
in order to redirect your rails app running on port 4000 to default http port 80, append the below config to /etc/rinetd.conf
0.0.0.0 80 0.0.0.0 4000
0.0.0.0 443 0.0.0.0 3003
The second line in above config is needed only if you use SSL. After saving the config restart the rinetd, dnsmasq & network.
sudo service rinetd restart
sudo service dnsmasq restart
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
If you think these steps are hassle, you can set things with invoker gem.
2. Setup with invoker
You can automate all these dnsmasq & rinetd setup using invoker gem.
gem install invokerand run its setup command
rvmsudo invoker setupMore details about invoker configuration is available on invoker.codemancers.com
You are done, Now you can type <you app>.dev in the browser instead of localhost:4000.