Setting Up Virtual Hosts in XAMPP for Windows: A Step-by-Step Guide

To create a virtual host in XAMPP, you need to follow these steps:

1. Edit the Hosts File:

• Locate the hosts file on your system. Typically, it’s located at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on Windows, or /etc/hosts on Linux.
• Open the hosts file with a text editor with administrative privileges.
• Add an entry for your virtual host. The format is 127.0.0.1 yourdomain.local. Replace yourdomain.local with the domain name you want to use for your virtual host.

2. Configure Apache:

• Navigate to your XAMPP installation directory and locate the httpd-vhosts.conf file. Typically, it’s located at C:\xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf on Windows or /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf on Linux.
• Open httpd-vhosts.conf with a text editor.
• Add a virtual host configuration. Here is an example:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@yourdomain.local
    DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/yourprojectfolder"
    ServerName yourdomain.local
    ServerAlias www.yourdomain.local
    ErrorLog "logs/yourdomain.local-error.log"
    CustomLog "logs/yourdomain.local-access.log" common
</VirtualHost>

• Replace yourdomain.local with the domain name you specified in the hosts file.
• Replace "C:/xampp/htdocs/yourprojectfolder" with the path to the directory containing your project files.
• You can also customize other settings like ServerAdmin, ErrorLog, and CustomLog as needed.

3. Restart Apache:

• Open the XAMPP Control Panel.
• Stop Apache and then start it again to apply the changes.

4. Access Your Virtual Host:

• Open a web browser and navigate to http://yourdomain.local.

Make sure that the directory specified in the DocumentRoot directive exists and contains your website files.

By following these steps, you should be able to set up a virtual host in XAMPP.