A simple DNS server that adds pattern matching functionality to your standard hosts file.

Are you fed up with maintaining a host file that looks like this:

127.0.0.1 SiteA
127.0.0.1 SiteB
127.0.0.1 SiteC
127.0.0.1 SiteD

By using a convention such as a top level domain of .dev, you can answer all lookups for those names with 127.0.0.1

This means you can access anything.dev and it will resolve to your machine. Much like *.mymachine.me, but without the prerequisite of internet access.

Edit your host file as you normally would, except you now have the benefit of pattern matching syntax on the name parameter:

<IP|Name> <Name pattern>

For example, to map anything.dev to 127.0.0.1:

127.0.0.1 *.dev

Wildcards (*) only match a single subdomain level. To match multiple subdomains, such as anything.anything.dev to 127.0.0.1:

127.0.0.1 *.*.dev

To map sausages.com to bacon.com:

bacon.com sausages.com

If you don't want to use your hosts file to configure Velvet, set the HostsPath setting in the app.config to a different path. The path can be relative to the Velvet executable or absolute.

Currently, only IPv4 A and CName records are supported.

Change your primary DNS server to be 127.0.0.1, and your secondary DNS server to whatever your primary one was. If there is no explicit primary DNS server, run ipconfig /all to find out what your DNS server is.

Run install.bat

Go to Services and start Velvet