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Configuring subdomains in XAMPP

·2 mins

My environemnt #

At the time of writing, I am running XAMPP 8.0.3 on macOS 11.4

1. Enable Virtual Hosts in Apache #

Go to /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/etc/httpd.conf and uncomment this line:

#Include etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

2. Configuring a new virtual host #

  1. Navigate to XAMPP’s htdocs and create a directory named subdomains.

  2. Create a directory inside subdomains to be the root directory of the new subdomain. You may call it whatever you like, for this example we will call it mysubdomain.

  3. Replace the code inside /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf to configure the new virtual host (subdomain).

# localhost
<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs"
    ServerName localhost
    <Directory  "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs">
       Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs"
    ServerName localhost

    SSLEngine On

    SSLCertificateFile "etc/ssl.crt/server.crt"
    SSLCertificateKeyFile "etc/ssl.key/server.key"
    <Directory  "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

# mysubdomain.localhost
<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/subdomains/mysubdomain"
    ServerName mysubdomain.localhost
    <Directory  "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/subdomains/mysubdomain">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    DocumentRoot "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/subdomains/mysubdomain"
    ServerName mysubdomain.localhost

    SSLEngine On

    SSLCertificateFile "etc/ssl.crt/server.crt"
    SSLCertificateKeyFile "etc/ssl.key/server.key"
    <Directory  "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/subdomains/mysubdomain">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

# Repeat as above to add more

3. Edit your hosts file #

Edit /etc/hosts as superuser and add your new subdomain to the list.

sudo vim /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 mysubdomain.localhost

This will point the hostname mysubdomain.localhost to your local machine, Apache will then handle any HTTP/HTTPS requests to it.

Final notes #

  • Restart XAMPP for the changes to apply.
  • Remember to ALWAYS make backups of the original config files.
  • You may repeat this process to add as many subdomains as you like.
  • If you have a .htaccess in the root directory of htdocs, double check the rules you’re applying with it. You may have to add a .htaccess file to your subdomain folder to override the rules set by the one in the root folder since subdomains folder is still a child of htdocs, otherwise you may be faced with an annnoying 500 Internal Server error like I was.