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Pancake Stack
ChaptersPancake Stack Manual
Getting started
  1. 1Welcome to Pancake
  2. 2A tour of the window
  3. 3Your first site
Building sites
  1. 4Working with sites
  2. 5Files, the editor and design
  3. 6Bringing sites in
  4. 7Databases
Sharing and publishing
  1. 8Putting sites online
  2. 9On my network and local HTTPS
  3. 10Mail from your sites
  4. 11Deploying
Running your stack
  1. 12Backups and save points
  2. 13Services, tasks and workers
  3. 14The Assistant and MCP
Reference
  1. 15Settings, templates and plug-ins
  2. 16Plans and subscription
  3. 17Troubleshooting
  4. 18Privacy and your data

Pancake Stack › Pancake Stack Manual

Serve it up · Sharing and publishing

On my network and local HTTPS

Open your sites from a phone, iPad or another computer on the same Wi-Fi, never from the internet, and give .localhost sites trusted HTTPS.

9.1Why phones need a little help

A .localhost address always means "this device", so a phone that opens blog.localhost looks for the site on the phone itself. On my network gives each site a second name, blog.test, that every device on your network can reach, while nothing is put on the internet.

9.2Turn it on

  1. In the Online pane, turn on On my network.
  2. Pancake starts a small name server and shows: "On each device, set the DNS server to" followed by this Mac's address, such as 192.168.0.163. Click Copy.
  3. On each phone, tablet or computer, set that address as its DNS server. How to set it shows the steps for iPhone and iPad, Android, another Mac and Windows. Or set it once in your router's DNS settings, so every device on the network gets it.
  4. Open a site by its name, such as http://blog.test/, or scan its QR code (in the Online pane, or on the site's card).
On my network switched on: the DNS address to give your devices, and each site's .test address with Copy and a QR code.
Figure 9.1On my network switched on: the DNS address to give your devices, and each site's .test address with Copy and a QR code.

Everything else keeps working on those devices: Pancake passes every other name on to this Mac's own DNS servers. Pancake never answers devices outside your local network.

Note

Other devices use plain http://. HTTPS with Pancake's own certificate works on this Mac only, for now.

9.3Name ending, wildcards and extra names

With Advanced on:

9.4Local HTTPS

Some features (secure cookies, service workers, camera access, payment test modes) need https://. Pancake can give every .localhost site a trusted certificate.

  1. Open Settings ▸ Local HTTPS and click Turn on….
  2. Pancake makes its own certificate authority, which can only sign .localhost names, and asks macOS to trust it. Enter your Mac's password when asked (once).
  3. Sites now open at https://name.localhost without warnings in Safari and Chrome. A lock button appears on each site card.

HTTPS uses port 443 (or 8443 when Pancake runs on the alternate ports). Firefox keeps its own list of trusted authorities; turn on its setting to use macOS's certificates if it shows a warning. If the status says "Certificate made, not trusted yet", click Trust again….

For public names, certificates come from Cloudflare, Let's Encrypt or your own (see Putting sites online).