allow external server to access a server with no dns using php
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My development servers are external "dev.site.com"

We have our database on an external ip, but there is no dns records for it. dns has been setup locally using hosts files. For example: database.site.com 55.444.33.21

Since my external development server cannot resolve database.site.com or 55.444.33.21 independently, nor can i add local dns records to the server, how can I properly access it. Is there some method in PHP I can utilize to essentially create an on-the-fly dns for?

I do not have the ability to change how anything is setup, but i have full control of the codebase which is PHP. Essentially i'm looking for a way to say 55.444.33.21 = database.site.com in my script so whenever i call database.site.com in code it works.

