XCode 6 Simulator ignores hosts file changes

Question

I have a client-server App, in order to test it with Simulator I have a server on a virtual machine and I change mac's hosts file (/etc/hosts) so I can get there.

It works fine in XCode 5, but on XCode 6 the server cannot be reached. When trying to open an NSURLConnection to it I get -

Error Domain=kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork Code=310 "There was a problem communicating with the secure web proxy server (HTTPS)." UserInfo=0x78b3fc50 {_kCFStreamErrorCodeKey=-2096,
NSErrorFailingURLStringKey=https://xxx.yyy.zzz/mobile/login, NSErrorFailingURLKey=https://xxx.yyy.zzz/mobile/login, NSLocalizedDescription=There was a problem communicating with the secure web proxy server (HTTPS)., _kCFStreamErrorDomainKey=4, NSLocalizedRecoverySuggestion=Please check your proxy settings. For help with this problem, contact your system administrator.

Of course the server can be reached from Safari by typing https://xxx.yyy.zzz, it answers to ping and it still works if I turn on XCode 5.

I figure that the Simulator ignores the changes for the mac's hosts file, or maybe it uses it's own private hosts file.

If I enter some "hard coded resolving" (translating in the code the xxx.yyy.zzz to it's ip address) the server can be reached.

Anyone has any idea how to solve this?

Answer 1

Solution:

Make sure you add each host alias on different line:

# Wrong!
  127.0.0.1 example.com www.example.com

# Good
  127.0.0.1 example.com
  127.0.0.1 www.example.com

My story:

I had the same issue with Xcode 6.

There is a bug or behaviour change in OSX related to /etc/hosts.

If I add more host aliases on the same line in OSX's /etc/hosts file, iOS simulator gives me the same error. But if I add each host alias on it's own line, iOS simulator works as I expect it to.

Answer 2

Have you tried flushing the DNS cache with the command

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

before quitting and relaunching the iOS Simulator ?