Brablc.com

I play quite often with /etc/hosts file (well I’m on window so I use C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts), or I even switch DNS to our development server using following Windows command (make sure your network connection is called LAN):
# Switch to development DNS
netsh interface ip set dns "LAN" static 192.168.10.10 primary
ipconfig /flushdns

# Switch back to DHCP
netsh interface ip set dns "LAN" source=dhcp
ipconfig /flushdns


All this is done to work with the real domain names already during development – no worry, we do some things by changing the top level domain to .dev, but I simply need both.

Now I need a tool which tells me quickly whether I’m in prod or dev. I was using ShowIP Firefox Extension , but it somehow behaved incorrectly for me – mainly looked like some caching problems.

So I decided to write my own extension which would be dead simple and would simply show me the current IP address of the domain loaded in the current tab. So I wrote it using Mozilla Add-on Builder. It took me less time than to write this post (ok, I have spent 2 years developing AllPeers and some months as Mozilla contractor on Firefox 3).

After installing the AlertIP Extension customize your toolbar and add the star icon (the default icon for extensions) to your toolbar.