Setting Up Virtual Hosts For XAMPP On Windows

Setting Up Virtual Hosts For XAMPP On Windows

There are many uses for setting up virtual hosts. For example, it can neatly segregate multiple projects that are being developed concurrently. In some cases, it helps to create a development environment that is closer to production. For example, by using virtual hosts, you are able to mimic having domains and subdomains.

HOW TO SETUP

For this tutorial, we will be looking to add a virtual host with the domain name web.devenv. You can, of course replace this name with anything you like, but for the sake of being consistent throughout the tutorial, I will stick with web.devenv

First, you will need to find your hosts file which by default on any Windows version should be at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
Second, edit the hosts file and add in the following lines

127.0.0.1 web.devenv
127.0.0.1 www.web.devenv

Third, find a file called httpd-vhosts.conf in your XAMPP directory. By default, it should be at C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra
Fourth, edit the file and append the following to the end(or bottom) of the file. I will explain relevant fields below.

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerAdmin root@localhost
        DocumentRoot "C:/dev/php"
        ServerName web.devenv
        ServerAlias www.web.devenv
        ErrorLog "C:/dev/web/logs/test.dev_error_log"
        CustomLog "C:/dev/web/logs/test.dev_access_log" common
        
        <Directory "C:/dev/web">
            Allow from all
            Require all granted  
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

DocumentRoot is the root directory where apache will look for files. So in this case, if you would to browse to http://web.devenv/index.php, apache tries to look for a file at the path C:/dev/php/index.php.

ServerName is the domain name that you can use to access. It can be anything, even localhost

ServerAlias is just an alias for ServerName. It can be ww1.web.devenv or ww2.web.devenv and so on

ErrorLog is the path where apache errors will be written to. The directory must exists, otherwise apache will not start. In the above example, C:/dev/web/logs/ must exist (the file however, does not need to exist)

CustomLog is the path where custom logs will be written to. Similarly, the directory must exists, otherwise apache will not start. In the above example, C:/dev/web/logs/ must exist (the file however, does not need to exist)