I've installed Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 on my laptop to use as my normal OS. I do a lot of web development and thought it would be handy to run OS X Server so I could more easily manage my local development environment (Apache Virtual Hosts, Hostnames for each local site, etc).

I'm really enjoying the new setup except for one problem. DNS. My ideal situation would be to add a site (some-site.local) in the Web Service and then go to the DNS Service and add a primary record for the new site.

I actually got this working at one point but after a reboot it stopped working! The records look the same as they did before the reboot but the site doesn't come up in Safari.

Here is a list of my needs:

• Need to be able to add new domains at a whim
• Domains always map to a site on the same box's Web Service
• Local & External IPs often change
• It would nice if it worked on any network (i.e. WiFi at the airport or coffee shop)
• Sites only need to be accessible locally
• Configuration should stay put even after rebooting

I've done some googling and used this as a bit of guide.

In the past I've used MAMP and then just a local Apache/PHP/MySQL install with a manually managed hosts file. I'd rather not go back.