Local dev server

I've been doing alot of reading on how to setup a local dev server to manage multiable webpages with virtual hosts and a DNS server. However I have yet to find anything about how to tell another computer on the network to point its self to the local DNS server so it can use it to find the virtual hosts.

All I can find is telling me to edit my hosts file on my main computer.

Got any info?

Also know of any good control panels to manage virtual hosts and a DNS server?

I'm currently looking at Webmin and ISPConfig.

Editing the hosts files may be all you need. In Unix /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf
It could be different on your system but that's where I would start.

I would think if you've got a router connecting multiple computers, you could add the local IP of the DNS server as the primary DNS address on the router itself, then add your usual DNS addresses as the secondary & ternary entries.

Never tried it, but I remember seeing a form for manually setting this in my router ages ago.

I never heard of that but it might work. I always thought that the DNS entries on the router were for upstream only, not local hosts.

in /etc/resolv.conf you can set a name server for the computer to look go to. Then if your name server does not have the required dns it will forward the request out to another DNS server to provide in the forward {} section in /etc/bind/named.conf.options

However I cant find anything like this for windows which is my main computer I use.

in windows, if you go into the control panel, network and internet connections,
then network connections, right click on your network connection (usually title Local Area Connection) and go to properties. a window comes up with a list box in the middle. scroll to the bottom and select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and then click the properties button beneath it. another window will open, and in the bottom portion of this new window you're able to set your preferred and alternate dns servers. set em, apply, voila.

if that doesn't help,
check out http://www.dns.net/dnsrd/servers/windows.html
and http://members.shaw.ca/nicholas.fong/dig/

hopefully one of the above could be of some help?

Ah, thank you. Exactly what I was looking for.

no prob :]
glad i could help.

Why was the question in the Unix and Linux forum?

Probably should have been in the Windows forum, but I wasnt sure if it was a special setting on the DNS server that projected DNS settings to other computers on the network or not.

That thought sounds rather stupid now though, but you never know.

eh, i wouldn't worry about it.. "the only dumb question is the one that doesn't get asked."

besides, dons probably just mad because i beat him to the answer ;P hahah

It sent me in the wrong direction. I never would have looked anywhere other than the files I mentioned. No big deal.

lol yea, understandable. i just like giving you a hard time