Buildhosts

This is a script I wrote to write my /etc/hosts file for me.

Configuring all the entries was a hassle, especially when using xip.io. This script takes your local hostnames (and the various IP address you need to pass to xip.io) and creates all the necessary entries to access any of the hosts while passing any of the IPs to xip.io.

Oh, and there's really no point in using this script if you're not using xip.io.

Manginx

Also included is manginx, a script that keeps xip.io and nginx in harmony. More on that later.

Installation

That's easy:

$ gem install buildhosts

Boom.

Usage

Before you do anything, back up your current /etc/hosts file!

To edit your config file, type

$ buildhosts -e

You should do that before doing anything else (except backing up your /etc/hosts file, do that first).

You can add custom hosts by typing

$ buildhosts -c

List your hosts with

$ buildhosts -l

Note: this does not list the IPs, only the hosts.

Run manginx with

$ buildhosts --nginx

Configuration

If you run buildhosts with this config file:

sample-config

[hosts]
    foobar.local
    example.local
[ips]
    192.168.1.1
    10.0.1.1

it will produce this output:

/etc/hosts

##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting.  Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1       localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1             localhost
fe80::1%lo0     localhost

::1             example.local
127.0.0.1       example.local
::1             example.local.10.0.1.1.xip.io
127.0.0.1       example.local.10.0.1.1.xip.io
::1             example.local.192.168.1.1.xip.io
127.0.0.1       example.local.192.168.1.1.xip.io
::1             foobar.local
127.0.0.1       foobar.local
::1             foobar.local.10.0.1.1.xip.io
127.0.0.1       foobar.local.10.0.1.1.xip.io
::1             foobar.local.192.168.1.1.xip.io
127.0.0.1       foobar.local.192.168.1.1.xip.io

Manginx

For each host you specified in the config, manginx will create a file that contains duplicate server_name directives for the host, but with all the necessary xip.io URLs appended. You just need to include that file in your nginx.conf (see below) and run

$ buildhosts --nginx

Note: make sure you have a xip/ directory in the same directory as your nginx.conf.

To include the file,

just duplicate any server_name lines in your nginx.conf and modify them like this:

Before:

server_name foobar.local;

After:

server_name foobar.local;
include xip/foobar.local;

Vim protip:

From a server_name line (in normal mode):

yypRinclude xip/

If you've got a lot of lines to do, make that a macro; you won't regret it.