Custom Local DNS entry ignored

dns

I'm using dnsmasq to route requests to .lh hosts to my vagrant server currently running on 192.168.0.5 on Mac OSX 10.6.

scutil --dns returns the correct resolver info:

resolver #9
  domain : lh
  nameserver[0] : 192.168.0.5

But ping (and also the browser) is unable to resolve the domain:

ping root.blah.lh
ping: cannot resolve root.blah.lh: Unknown host

I added 192.168.0.5 to my list of DNS servers in my network settings, and it's sitting at the top of the list, above 8.8.8.8 – seems to be getting completely ignored.

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder and sudo dscacheutil -flushcache apparently have no effect.

How can I get .lh hosts to resolve to 192.168.0.5 correctly?

(the stuff below this line is historical, and has been moved here after Alan Shutko's answer indicating that nslookup is not a useful analysis tool in this case)

nslookup is also unable to resolve the domain:

nslookup blah.lh
Server:     8.8.8.8
Address:    8.8.8.8#53

** server can't find blah.lh: NXDOMAIN

I also tried adding 127.0.0.1 to my DNS server list in network settings (at the top), which produces a lookup on local, viz:

nslookup blah.lh
Server:     127.0.0.1
Address:    127.0.0.1#53

Name:   blah.lh
Address: 127.0.0.1

Best Answer

I'm assuming you are using Mac OS X, since you mention scutil. nslookup doesn't use the same mechanisms as the rest of the OS:

From man nslookup:

Mac OS X NOTICE

The nslookup command does not use the host name and address resolution or the DNS query routing mechanisms used by other processes running on Mac OS X. The results of name or address queries printed by nslookup may differ from those found by other processes that use the Mac OS X native name and address resolution mechanisms. The results of DNS queries may also differ from queries that use the Mac OS X DNS routing library.

Related Question