Parallels is really easy to setup for most situations... but I develop several websites, each with their own domain name, where the development version of the website is running locally on a MacBook.
With this setup, there are a few issues:
1) Because its a laptop, there is no static IP address on the main ethernet interface... with the possibility that the interface may be disabled, when its not connected.
2) Because I work on several websites, I don't want to keep editing the /etc/hosts file for each new website... so I'm running a local copy of BIND, which provides a wild-card DNS record.
3) The virtual machines need access to this DNS service, so the browsers can load the different websites.
I have gone into some detail on how I've set this up... and I think the instructions is a little long for a forum post, so I've put them on my website (sorry for the outbound links)...
http://www.craigfrancis.co.uk/features/setup/parallels/
http://www.craigfrancis.co.uk/features/setup/bind/
With this setup, there are a few issues:
1) Because its a laptop, there is no static IP address on the main ethernet interface... with the possibility that the interface may be disabled, when its not connected.
2) Because I work on several websites, I don't want to keep editing the /etc/hosts file for each new website... so I'm running a local copy of BIND, which provides a wild-card DNS record.
3) The virtual machines need access to this DNS service, so the browsers can load the different websites.
I have gone into some detail on how I've set this up... and I think the instructions is a little long for a forum post, so I've put them on my website (sorry for the outbound links)...
http://www.craigfrancis.co.uk/features/setup/parallels/
http://www.craigfrancis.co.uk/features/setup/bind/