Question

I have to manage a few websites. For testing I have a local (localhost) copy and an online copy.

The cms engine http://Pyrocms.com has a multi-site manager and you enter a domain. In the browser you enter the domain name and it serves the website for the request site that is stored in a central database.

Online this works fine but locally it doesn’t, I end up having to type

localhost/silo1/myclient1/

I would like to be able to type

myclient1.test

The first thing I thought of was lmhost file, but I releasise I cant map to the sub directories, just the IP addresses.

Below is what I tried to do in the host file in Windows7, it didnt work, it just directed me to 127.0.0.1 when I entered mywebsite2.test.

HOST FILE – AKA LMHOST

File stored @ #C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
lmhost/host file
127.0.0.1                   mywebsite1.test
127.0.0.1/mywebsite2/       mywebsite2.test  **#I want to do something like this**

Technologies:

• OS: Windows7 Server: WAMP 2

• (Apache with Mod Rewrite on)

Answer 1

If I understand you correctly, the only way you are going to accomplish that is by…

Editing the HOSTS file (not LMHOSTS) to resolving your fake domain-name to the loopback address (127.0.0.1).

127.0.0.1 myclient1.test
127.0.0.1 myclient2.test

Then use an .htaccess file with mod_rewrite conditions and rules to match the host header (for each different website) and internally rewrite the request to the proper sub-folder/sub-url.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^myclient1\.test$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^/*(.*)$ http://localhost/silo1/myclient1/$1 [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^myclient2\.test$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^/*(.*)$ http://localhost/silo2/myclient2/$1 [NC]

Or if you want to do a full redirect (instead of an internal redirect)…

RewriteRule ^/*(.*)$ http://localhost/silo1/myclient1/$1 [R=301,NC]