[codetrotter]

In that case I would prefer naming as

  <virtual>.<physical-host>.internal

So for example

  phpbb.mtndew.internal

And I’d probably still add

  phpbb.localhost 

To /etc/hosts on that host like OP does

[nodesocket]

I wrote a super basic DNS server in go (mostly fun and go practice) which allows you to specify hosts and ips in a json config file. This eliminates the need for editing your /etc/hosts file. If it matches a host in the json config file it returns that ip, else uses Cloudflare public DNS resolver as a fallback. Please; easy on my go code :-). I am a total beginner with go.

https://github.com/nodesocket/godns