How to set up dnsmasq under linux to use a wildcard domain for local web development with lando/docker?

Question

I recently discovered lando for local web development, which uses docker in the background. It works great so far, but I have to add every domain for each project manually to my hosts file

/etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1   myproject.local.host
127.0.0.1   bs.myproject.local.host
127.0.0.1   bs-admin.myproject.local.host

(the bs. and bs-admin. ones are for browsersync)

According to the lando docs, it is possible to have a wildcard domain instead of hard coding every domain. Unfortunately are those instructions for MacOS and I am on Arch Linux (Manjaro Gnome 41.3).
I tried to figure it out myself with the help of the page Arch Wiki: Dnsmasq and other online resources but I couldn't get it to work.

This is what I currently have:

• installed Dnsmasq sudo pacman -S dnsmasq
• added these lines to the /etc/dnsmasq.conf file (everything else in the file was/is commented out):

  listen-address=::1,127.0.0.1
  expand-hosts
  domain=local.host
  

• restart local server sudo systemctl restart httpd and sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq
• added this line to ~/.lando/config.yml

  domain: local.host
  

• restart lando lando poweroff and lando start

However, it does not work:

❯ ping http://myproject.local.host:8000/          
ping: http://myproject.local.host:8000/: Name or service not known
❯ ping http://myproject.local.host      
ping: http://myproject.local.host: Name or service not known
❯ ping https://myproject.local.host      
ping: https://myproject.local.host: Name or service not known

Adding these lines to /etc/resolv.conf didn't help either:

nameserver 127.0.0.1

Update:

I'm still very confused how dnsmasq.conf (dnsmasq.d), etc/hosts, etc/resolv.conf and /etc/systemd/resolved.conf interact with each other. But after more reading and trial&error, this is were I am currently:

• added this line to/etc/dnsmasq.conf :

  address=/local.host/127.0.0.1
  

• no added lines to /etc/hosts These lines were in there from StevenBlack/hosts

  127.0.0.1 localhost
  127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain
  127.0.0.1 local
  255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
  ::1 localhost
  ::1 ip6-localhost
  ::1 ip6-loopback
  fe80::1%lo0 localhost
  ff00::0 ip6-localnet
  ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
  ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
  ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
  ff02::3 ip6-allhosts
  0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0
  

• added this line to /etc/resolv.conf :

  nameserver 127.0.0.1
  

• ran sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager and sudo systemctl restart dnsmasq
• added this line to ~/.lando/config.yml

  domain: local.host
  

• ran lando poweroff and lando start

When I test it, I get this:

❯ nslookup foo.local.host localhost    
Server:     localhost
Address:    ::1#53

Name:   foo.local.host
Address: 127.0.0.1

❯ nslookup foo.local.test          
Server:     192.168.2.1
Address:    192.168.2.1#53

** server can't find foo.local.test: NXDOMAIN

❯ ping foo.local.host       
ping: foo.local.host: Name or service not known

lando start shows the top two urls in green and the bottom two in red:

APPSERVER URLS  https://localhost:49291                      
                http://localhost:49292                       
                http://myproject.local.host:8000/          
                https://myproject.local.host/    

Answer 1

The nslookup tool is a simple case: it always reads /etc/resolv.conf and directly talks to whatever DNS server is found in that file. However, if you have multiple nameserver lines in that file, it'll only use one of them, usually the first one.

It's important to keep in mind that additional nameservers in resolv.conf are not "merged". They're only used as fallbacks if the first nameserver is completely unreachable. But if the first server does answer "I don't know foo.local.test", that's the final result – neither nslookup nor any other program will keep trying other servers in case one of them knows the name.

If your resolv.conf lists the special dnsmasq instance, it should not also list your router, or any other DNS server – all your DNS queries should go through dnsmasq (which will forward them to the "real" server if needed).

Systemd-resolved is a separate topic. When it's active, most programs (except for dig/nslookup) will talk to it directly, bypassing the traditional /etc/resolv.conf mechanism. Systemd-resolved itself has two modes: either it reads resolv.conf, or it provides resolv.conf.

So if you're using e.g. systemd-resolved and NetworkManager, you should usually change your DNS servers via NetworkManager (connection profile) first, which will then propagate them to systemd-resolved. But if you want to edit resolv.conf manually, first use ls -l to make sure it's not a symlink to one of systemd-resolved managed files. If needed, remove it and replace with a regular file.

---

Also, these are the only useful lines from your /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 localhost
::1 localhost

The rest is entirely useless, even if it happens to come from Debian.

Answer 2

After lots of trial and error and reading online resources, I found a version that seems to work.

Disclaimer: I highly doubt that this is the correct way to do it and there are probably better ways. I also don't know whether all those steps are necessary or what kind of negative implications my settings will have on my system, that I haven't noticed yet.

Issues before

• NetworkManager was overwriting /etc/resolv.conf, so whatever changes I made, where reverted by running sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager Arch Wiki:NetworkManager
• Missing certs in firefox Lando Docs

Working version

1. add this line to/etc/dnsmasq.conf :

   address=/local.host/127.0.0.1
   

2. leave /etc/hosts as is
3. create file /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/dns.conf with content:

   [main]
   dns=none
   

4. add nameserver 127.0.0.1 at the top of /etc/resolv.conf, that looks like this for me:

   nameserver 127.0.0.1
   nameserver 192.168.2.1
   nameserver fe80::1%enp0s20u2u4
   

5. run

   systemctl restart dnsmasq
   systemctl restart NetworkManager
   

6. add this line to ~/.lando/config.yml

   domain: local.host
   

7. run

   lando poweroff
   lando rebuild -y
   

8. run

   sudo trust anchor ~/.lando/certs/local.host.pem
   sudo trust anchor ~/.lando/certs/local.host.crt
   

Update

This solution is not persistent, the content of /etc/resolv.conf gets overwritten by the NetworkManager, e.g. after restarting It also causes problems with wifi connections for me.