how to make a virtual host like http://mysite in Apache?

just need to review sites in local computer

[mms19]

I have Apache for Windows installed in my local computer. I have a few sites in different folders, say c:/my documents/web/mysite and d:/www/othersite.
I would like to access the sites directly via [mysite...] and [othersite....] So, I just set the VirtualHost in the httpd.conf as

NameVirtualHost mysite

<VirtualHost mysite>
ServerAdmin [e-mail]
DocumentRoot c:/my documents/web/mysite
ServerName mysite
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost othersite>
ServerAdmin [e-mail]
DocumentRoot d:/www/othersite
ServerName othersite
</VirtualHost>

but this does not work.

What did I do wrong? Anything need to be set particularly in Apache for Windows?

Thank you.

[dmorison]

Try using automatic virtual hosts instead; add the line...

VirtualDocumentRoot c:/my documents/web/%0

...to your Apache config; and then build your sites in sub-directories at c:/my documents/web/ with the directory name equal to the host name you wish to use. Apache will replace %0 in the above example with the host name in use and take that as the document root.

[BjarneDM]

does Windows have a hosts file?

the problem is, that your sites don't have dns records.

on all *nix platforms you modify the hosts file and enter lines for each of your virtual non-existing web-sites

[DaveAtIFG]

On Win2K at least, lmhosts is the *nix equivalent of hosts. Win2K help under "Configure TCP/IP to use WINS" details using lmhosts.

[robho]

You need both the Apache entries and DNS.

The file "hosts" (possibly in c:\windows\system\drivers\etc - varies by windows version) should have one entry for each site:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 local.widgetdomain1.com
127.0.0.1 local.widgetdomain2.com
etc..

In my httpd.conf I just have (repeated for each site):

<VirtualHost *>
DocumentRoot /home/widgetdomain1.com/web
ServerName local.widgetdomain1.com
</VirtualHost>

The virtual host bit can have other directions for each site, such as rewrites, DirectoryIndex etc.

Restart Apache after changing the config, of course. Then the local version of each site is reachable with local.widgetdomain2.com etc., in place of www... for the live site.

(I should also mention that I think having them all at 127.0.0.1 didn't work for me in earlier Windows - I used 127.0.0.2, 3, etc. but seems OK in XP.)