XAMPP Virtual Host For Windows

XAMPP-Virtual-Host-Windows.md

I’ll go step-by-step on how to create a virtual host in the XAMPP environment For Windows.

As we know, the default http://localhost points to C:\xampp\htdocs as the root directory. The desired result is to be able to visit http://examplevhost.local, with the root directory being C:\xampp\htdocs\examplevhost.

Note: The steps below are done on Windows 10, but they should also work on other Windows versions (7, 8, 8.1).

Note: I’ll assume that XAMPP is installed in C:\xampp. If it’s different on your setup, please read carefully and adjust accordingly.

Enable virtual hosts in apache configuration file

Note: This should be done only once per XAMPP installation. If you want to add another virtual host later you can skip to the next step.

• Open this file with notepad

C:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf

• Find the line that looks like this:

# Virtual hosts
# Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

• Uncomment the one that starts with "Include":

# Virtual hosts
Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Create project files

• Make a new folder in the htdocs with the name examplevhost
• Add a new HTML file to this folder index.html

Add host to system hosts file

• Open this file with notepad as administrator

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

• Add this line to the bottom of the file:

127.0.0.1	examplevhost.local

Note: You should add this line 127.0.0.1 localhost once in the hosts file (if it is not already exists)

Add host to XAMPP virtual hosts file

• Open this file with notepad

C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf

• Since we enabled this file in the first step we can start editing it. Add this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  <Directory "C:\xampp\htdocs\examplevhost">
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>

  ServerAdmin your_mail@provider.com
  ServerName examplevhost.local
  ServerAlias www.examplevhost.local
  DocumentRoot "C:\xampp\htdocs\examplevhost"

  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Note: You can re-use this snipped for any number of virtual hosts. The directives that need changing are DocumentRoot, ServerAlias, and ServerName (ServerName must exist as an entry in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts).

Note: It's safe to remove the example virtual hosts that come by default.

Test!

• Restart Apachec server from XAMPP control panel
• Visit http://examplevhost.local and you should see the content of C:\xampp\htdocs\examplevhost\index.html.