Can't access hosts offline

[meleyal]

When offline I'm not able to access any Pow hosts through the browser.

I can ping them, or access them with lynx, but all the desktop browsers I've tried (FF, Chrome, Safari) are unable to resolve the host. I can only access them offline by manually adding them to /etc/hosts.

I guess this is down to DNS caching by the browser / OS, and is not really a Pow issue, but maybe someone can explain what's going on?

[espen]

+1

[Port3M5]

I noticed this also.

[sstephenson]

It seems like the configuration in /etc/resolver is ignored when you're offline. Maybe someone would like to file a bug on Apple's Radar?

[joren]

+1

[themgt]

+1

[baldrailers]

+1

[fd]

+1

[sstephenson]

Thanks for the support, guys, but I'm afraid any number of +1s isn't going to help fix this. It's an issue with OS X's resolver system.

[fd]

workaround: Enable your Ad-Hoc Wifi Network.

[sstephenson]

Great find. @fd, could you add your workaround to the Troubleshooting wiki page?

[fd]

sure.

[emilford]

I am still trying to use Pow while offline. See here. I've tried the suggested fix of enabling the Ad-Hoc Network per the instructions on Apple linked to from the Troubleshooting section, but still no luck. Anything else I could be missing?

[raw1z]

+1

[carlos]

I'm facing the same issue with Mac OS X Lion.

[marioizquierdo]

+1, before it worked to me, but just updated to Lion and now it doesn't work offline

[vallasd]

+1, doesn't work in Lion (offline) unless I update /etc/hosts to include 127.0.0.1 myapp.dev. Does anyone know of any issues that can happen by running pow this way?

I run all my projects in a specific directory: (not sure how many people do this)

/path/WebDevelopment/Project1
/path/WebDevelopment/Project2
/path/WebDevelopment/Project3, etc...

I am able to run multiple sites at the same time as long as they are in /etc/hosts...

Can't pow just run a little utility that checks an environment variable which is my WebDevelopment path, gets the directories in this path, checks them against /etc/hosts, and adds them to /etc/hosts if needed.

You could also get the links in the .pow directory auto updated this way as well.

[josephers]

So is the workaround in Lion now to add each .dev address to hosts? If so, what would happen if Pow just used hosts instead of resolver?

[lindblom]

I wrote a little piece of code today that solves the problem if you are using powder together with pow that is.

The pull request can be found at powder-rb/powder#41

[smsm1]

The workaround of enabling the ad hoc wifi isn't a workaround when you are on a flight that prohibits wifi use. Hopefully the hosts option works. Powder adds extra dependancies that will clutter the bundle file for those who don't use it.

[guns]

Hello,

I was browsing the configd source trying to debug another problem, when
the solution to local DNS resolution while offline came to me:

http://serverfault.com/a/164215/3731

(See UPDATE section)

Essentially, if you specify the special root domain '.' as the domain
entry in your /etc/resolver/domain file, the resolver created is global,
and while it has lower precedence than the active network's DNS server
entry, it persists even when offline.

# cat /etc/resolver/root
nameserver 127.0.0.1
domain .

# scutil --dns # While offline
DNS configuration

resolver #1                     # EMPTY! This is the slot for active
                                # network resolver settings
resolver #2
  domain   : local
  options  : mdns
  timeout  : 5
  order    : 300000

...

resolver #8
  nameserver[0] : 127.0.0.1     # BINGO

It works on my machine, anyway. I thought I'd let you guys know here
since the serverfault poster linked to this issues page.

[adamgotterer]

Been a few months. Wanted to see if there were any new workarounds or break throughs?

[njvack]

For what it's worth: guns's suggestion to add domain . to /etc/resolver/dev worked for me (osx 10.8.2). I think that if pow's installer does that, all will be well?

[njvack]

OK, I'm actually a dumbass. Adding the "domain ." line actually sometimes seems to break regular DNS for me. So disregard my overly-hasty suggestion.

[guns]

I have since moved on to Linux as my desktop OS since I wrote that
serverfault post, but anyone who is really interested in solving this
can look at the sources for configd to figure out how the OS manages the
DNS resolvers stack:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/configd/

The solutions posted worked for me for 10.6 and 10.7 and allowed me to
continue to use dnsmasq as a local resolver even when not connected to a
network.

[chrisberkhout]

I had this problem too. I went with gem install powder && powder host solution.

[xta]

+1 to gem install powder && powder host

also, using powder open works for me

[besi]

This is based on @xta and @chrisberkhout's answers:
Since safari thinks you're offline you'll have to update your hosts file:

$ cat /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1   localhost
127.0.0.1   someproject.dev #powder
127.0.0.1   anotherproject.dev  #powder

The powder gem can take care of that by using the following command:

powder host            # Updates hosts file to map pow domains to 127.0.0.1

This fixed the problem for me.