Rails: Point DNS to 127.0.0.1 to Test Wildcard Subdomains on WEBrick

Want quick method for testing domain/subdomain-based routing logic in your Rails applications? Point a subdomain and wildcard subdomain of your company’s DNS to 127.0.0.1, your localhost IP address.

Then you can use that domain to access your local test web server on your local machine.

For example, I added DNS “A” records for:

• test.rietta.com → 127.0.0.1
• *.test.rietta.com → 127.0.0.1

Now Rietta’s developers can each access his local WEBrick server with:

• http://test.rietta.com:3000/
• http://something-made-up-on-the-spot.test.rietta.com:3000/
• http://something-else.test.rietta.com:3000/
• etc

Editing your /etc/hosts file is also an option, but that does not support wildcard domains.

Feel free to use my test subdomains if you want. They will simply point back to your computer.