Setting up Virtual Hosts in Apache on Mac OSX Mountain Lion is straight forward after you have your local Web Development environment up and running - get your web development up and running first following the AMP stack guide here if required.
The process of setting up Virtual Hosts is done easier in the Terminal either using nano or vi with sudo or as a root user, or you can you a GUI visual editor like Text Wrangler which allows access to the /private/etc directory by clicking 'Show Everything" in the open dialog box.
Allow the vhosts configuration from the Apache configuration file httpd.conf
sudo nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
Search for 'vhosts' and uncomment the include line
# Virtual hosts Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
This will allow usage of the httpd-vhosts.conf file, open this file to add in the vhost.
sudo nano /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
An example in the file is given of the format required to add additional domains, just follow this to create your new virtual host:
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@dummy-host2.example.com DocumentRoot "/usr/docs/dummy-host2.example.com" ServerName dummy-host2.example.com ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host2.example.com-error_log" CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/dummy-host2.example.com-access_log" common </VirtualHost>
We can take this example and extend on it, if you wanted a domain named apple.com for example, you can copy the existing text block and edit to suit:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName apple.com
ServerAlias www.apple.com
DocumentRoot "/Users/username/Sites/apple"
ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/apple.com-error_log" CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/apple.com-access_log" common
ServerAdmin neilgee@coolestguyplanettech.com
<Directory "/Users/neilg/Sites/apple">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>So here I am creating a vhost for apple.com and making the document root in my Sites folder, (you can file it anywhere), in the text block above I have also added in some directory permissions and a server alias to also use the 'www' prefix, what you need to change is the document root location, email address and domain name to suit your needs. Finish and save the file.
Spoof Your IP address to the Domain
sudo nano /etc/hosts
Add the Domain to resolve to the local address
127.0.0.1 apple.com 127.0.0.1 www.apple.com
Restart Apache
sudo apachectl restart
Check out your local vhost domain in the browser
Losing Localhost
One caveat to note about virtual hosts is that once set up you lose your older document root previously at /LIbrary/WebServer/Documents or accessed in the browser at http://localhost what happens is that you get a 403 Forbidden Error. But the ~/username document root is still compatible.
To get around this, you need to add in a vhost for localhost and declare this vhost before any of the others, in the same file:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
Add in:
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerName localhost DocumentRoot /Library/WebServer/Documents/ </VirtualHost>
Then restart Apache and all should be good.