Windows Sandbox name resolution
Daniel Nashed – 27 May 2023 13:57:13
The Windows Sandbox is a quite helpful tool. I would wish there would be more documentation.
I had a issue with name resolution and it turned out to be quite weird.
Host name resolution comes from host computer
The host file of the sandbox isn't fully used. The sandbox is designed to work closely with the host network, which also includes host name resolution.
This means that host file entries are coming from the host computer!
The virtual DNS server uses the host computer host file and your host DNS to resolve names.
Edge browser also checks Windows sandbox host file
This wasn't quite clear to me, because Microsoft Edge browser somehow also uses host entries from the sandbox.
Use case running your Domino and Nomad server inside Windows sandbox
I my case I wanted Nomad web to work inside the sandbox and it needs the host name entry to dispatch traffic to the Domino server over it's FQDN.
For Nomad web I deployed a static mapping in the Nomad configuration as a work-around.
But because there are also other parts of Domino like the server controller and server console client application, I did some more research and found to the entry must be in the host computer's host file.
So you just need to add your test server's FQDN into your hosts file on your local computer before starting the Windows sandbox.
This is usually not a problem, since you can have multiple entries for an IP address like 127.0.0.1.
But still it needs admin permissions to update the host file in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Example:
127.0.0.1 domino14.dominolab.loc
-- Daniel
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