Yosemite localhost resolver and dnsmasq fails offline

Question

Setup my local dev environment similar to this post and everything was working fine but recently I am unable to access my local dev domains when I am offline. When I am connected to the internet it works fine. I'm wondering if something changed with how resolver is used in Yosemite. It seems as if resolver rules are ignored if I'm offline.

dnsmasq.conf:

address=/.dev/127.0.0.1
listen-address=127.0.0.1

/etc/resolver/dev

 nameserver 127.0.0.1

When online:

ping -c 1 mydomain.dev
PING mydomain.dev (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.038 ms

--- mydomain.dev ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.038/0.038/0.038/0.000 ms

scutil --dns
resolver #1
search domain[0] : nomadix.com
nameserver[0] : 203.124.230.12
nameserver[1] : 202.54.157.36
if_index : 4 (en0)
flags    : Request A records
reach    : Reachable

resolver #2
domain   : dev
nameserver[0] : 127.0.0.1
flags    : Request A records, Request AAAA records
reach    : Reachable,Local Address

when offline:

ping -c 1 mydomain.dev
ping: cannot resolve mydomain.dev: Unknown host

scutil --dns
No DNS configuration available

Answer 1

OSX Yosemite + resolver + dnsmasq offline === resolved !!

when you're offline every interface on your computer, but 127.0.0.1, goes down.

so if you want to have a dns resolution your dns server have to listen to 127.0.0.1. In my case it's dnsmasq I choose because you don't have to be a sys admin to make it work, and it does !

following those simple steps I got it working:

1) brew install dnsmasq

2) cp /usr/local/opt/dnsmasq/dnsmasq.conf.example /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

if like me it's not properly installed in /usr/local/opt you should be able to read in the brew installation debug lines something like this :

make install PREFIX=/usr/local/Cellar/dnsmasq/2.72

in this case run the following command:

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/dnsmasq/2.72 /usr/local/opt/dnsmasq

and then back to step 2

3) vi /usr/local/etc/dnsmasq.conf

and add your domains like this for exemple:

address=/foo.dev/192.168.56.101

where in that case every url ending with foo.dev (http://www.foo.dev, http://foo.dev, http://what.ever.you.want.foo.dev, etc...) will be resolved as 192.168.56.101 (this is the kind of ip you have using Virtualbox, 192.168.56.*)

4) sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq.plist

5) try it before putting it into the resolver

nslookup foo.dev 127.0.0.1

and expect this :

Server:  127.0.0.1
Address:     127.0.0.1#53
Name:    foo.dev
Address: 192.168.56.101

6) mkdir -p /etc/resolver

vi /etc/resolver/dev

add those two lines :

nameserver 127.0.0.1
search_order 1

7) ping foo.dev or hint http://foo.dev or http://so.cool.foo.dev in your browser address bar and you're good to go !!!

8) Be happy !! You can work offline AGAIN !!!!