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Add project hosts entry on Windows

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Add project hosts entry on Windows

On Windows, custom DNS entries can be added to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc and will take precedence over the same entries provided by any DNS server.

Assumption

In order to better illustrate the process, we are going to use two projects as an example. See the following table for project directories and env-tld-suffix.

Project directoryTLD_SUFFIXProject URLRequired DNS name
project-1lochttp://project-1.locproject-1.loc
www.project-1lochttp://www.project-1.locwww.project-1.loc

Docker for Windows

When using Docker for Windows you can use 127.0.0.1 for the IP address.

  1. Open C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc with admistrative privileges via notepad.exe or any other text editor.

  2. Add DNS records for the above listed examples:

    Terminal window
    127.0.0.1  project-1.loc
    127.0.0.1  www.project-1.loc

  3. Save the file and verify the DNS entries with the ping command

    Terminal window
    host> ping -c1 project-1.loc
    

    PING project-1.loc (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.066 ms
    Terminal window
    host> ping -c1 www.project-1.loc
    

    PING www.project-1.loc (127.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.066 ms

Docker Toolbox

When using the Docker Toolbox, you cannot use 127.0.0.1 for DNS entries, but rather need to use the IP address of the Docker Toolbox machine instead.

howto-find-docker-toolbox-ip-address

For this example we will assume the Docker Toolbox IP address is 192.168.99.100.

  1. Open C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc with admistrative privileges via notepad.exe or any other text editor.

  2. Add DNS records for the above listed examples:

    Terminal window
    192.168.99.100  project-1.loc
    192.168.99.100  www.project-1.loc

  3. Safe the file and verify the DNS entries with the ping command

    Terminal window
    host> ping -c1 project-1.loc
    

    PING project-1.loc (192.168.99.100) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from localhost (192.168.99.100): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.066 ms
    Terminal window
    host> ping -c1 www.project-1.loc
    

    PING www.project-1.loc (192.168.99.100) 56(84) bytes of data.
    64 bytes from localhost (192.168.99.100): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.066 ms