Dev Hosts

Dev Hosts is for web apps you serve from a dev server under localhost.* names, like localhost.app.example.com. Each name switches between the server and this Mac. The names live in one managed block in /etc/hosts:

# >>> devhosts (managed by MiniControl)
100.64.0.1  localhost.app.example.com
127.0.0.1  localhost.admin.app.example.com
# <<< devhosts

Every change rewrites this Mac’s block, then the server’s, where every name points at the server itself. An orange triangle marks a name the server doesn’t have yet because it was offline; the next change syncs it.

Setup

Settings → (server) → Actions → Set Up Dev Hosts… installs a small root-owned helper and a sudoers rule for it, on this Mac and on the server. The helper only accepts localhost.* names and the two addresses, so it can’t redirect real domains.