Update local DNS or hosts file

Question

Created Oct ’15

Replies 4

Boosts 0

Views 14k

Participants 3

Hello all,

I been doing iOS for about 3 years now and able to transfer most of my skill in iOS to OS X development. So far, I notice there are differences such as the higher privileges, file system and so on.

The particular question I have is about the hosts file (located in /private/etc/hosts). I’m sure we all know it’s for DNS lookup and things. Just wondering, is there an API for updating the hosts file? Could someone point me to the API I should use?

Alternatively, is there API for updating domain lookup result on the mac temporally?

Thanks,

Boost

Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Oct ’15

iOS apps cannot, in general, make changes that affect the system as a whole, and that includes modifying DNS settings.

If you need to use DNS names for testing, you have a bunch of options:

the Bonjour .local name
run your own DNS server (OS X Server makes this really easy) and configure your iOS device to point to that
use a service like
```
xip.io
```

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn "The Eskimo!"
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

1

Answer 2

John-Doe OP

Oct ’15

Ok, that sounds good.

However, I can get higher privileges on MAC OS X and modify the hosts file in /private/etc/hosts. If I just edit the host file using file API it feels very dangerous, is there a hosts file specific API?

0

Answer 3

NotMyName OP

Oct ’15

Have you read the man(8) page for mDNSResponder?

Or the man(5) page for hosts on the mac?

0

Answer 4

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Oct ’15

There’s no API for editing

/etc/hosts

per se, but you can set up host records (

kODRecordTypeHosts

) in your local directory store. You should be able to do this from the command line using dscl but I’ve not done that in a very long time (like the Rhapsody era) so YMMV.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn "The Eskimo!"
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

0