Setting a Local Virtual Domain with XAMPP

It is actually very easy to create a virtual domain. It only requires two files to be modified and you don’t even have to store your site’s files within the XAMPP directory structure.

UPDATE: do NOT use .dev as the virtual domain.Â Read this for more information – Chrome AND Firefox Now Redirect .dev Domains to HTTPS.

First you want to go into this directory to make changes to XAMPP in order to set your virtual host/domain.

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

<VirtualHost yourDomain.dev:80>
    DocumentRoot "C:\websites\your-website\public"
    ServerName yourDomain.dev
    <Directory "C:\websites\your-website">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Since I am developing in Laravel, I have the public directory defined for the DocumentRoot

The second file you need to change tells Windows to map the local IP address to your virtual domain. Â You just have to add one line to this file, but this file has to be opened as an Administrator in order to save it. Â I use NOTE++ to edit this file.

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\host

In this file simply add this line…

127.0.0.1 Â Â yourDomain.dev

After these two files are updated, start XAMPP, put yourDomain.dev in browser and you should see your local website.

Robert Rosetta