Rails - Dec 2005 - Setting up Subdomains as Account Keys Under Mac OS X

I''m trying to configure my Rails app to use the subdomain as the
account key.  I''ve followed along with the HowTo [1], but under Mac OS
X (10.4.3) I cannot get sub.domain.mine to map to 127.0.0.1.

I''ve modified /etc/hosts as explained in "Dynamic Vhosts
Working" [2],
but I do not want to use Apache ... I''m using Webrick for development.
 Since this is Mac OS X, I also tried NetInfo Manager
(/Applications/Utilities/NetInfo Manager.app) by duplicating machines
localhost and changing the name property to "sub.domain.mine" -- but
that still didn''t work. I also tried rebooting after maching the
/etc/hosts and NetInfo changes, but that didn''t make it start to work.

Is there something I''m missing to alias sub.domain.mine to 127.0.0.1?
I wouldn''t think it would have anything to do with the webserver
(Webrick) as the browser should be using the OS to resolve the domain
name to an IP address.

Many thanks in advance for assistance,
Sean

[1] http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToUseSubdomainsAsAccountKeys
[2] http://www.mpet45.co.uk/articles/2005/02/02

On Dec 30, 2005, at 6:13 AM, Sean Mountcastle wrote:
> I''m trying to configure my Rails app to use the subdomain as the
> account key.  I''ve followed along with the HowTo [1], but under
Mac OS
> X (10.4.3) I cannot get sub.domain.mine to map to 127.0.0.1.
Make sure you still put the port number in the url, like  
sub.domain.mine:3000

toby

Toby,
> Make sure you still put the port number in the url, like
> sub.domain.mine:3000
I was doing that. I finally figured out my problem, the directions in
"Dynamic VHosts Working" [1] were incorrect for Mac OS X (and probably
other Unix platforms).  In /etc/hosts you cannot add multiple entries
with the same key, like so:

127.0.0.1     localhost
127.0.0.1     sub.domain.mine
127.0.0.1     foo.domain.mine

You must add the aliases on a single line:

127.0.0.1     localhost sub.domain.mine foo.domain.mine

I also learned quite a bit about Mac OS X''s lookupd.  If you type
lookupd -configuration examine the host configuration item:

LookupOrder: Cache FF NI DNS DS
_config_name: Host Configuration

You''ll want to ensure that FF appears before DNS so that the entries
in your flat file (FF), /etc/hosts, are used before hitting the DNS
servers.

I''m going to update the Rails Wiki with this information.

Regards,
Sean

[1] http://www.mpet45.co.uk/articles/2005/02/02