Alias hostname for localhost

localhost alias hostname
WhatIsName picture WhatIsName · Oct 17, 2013 · Viewed 78.9k times · Source

Assuming that a local Python-Script is running a webserver.

Is there any way to set an alias, so that http://localwebapp/ equals http://localhost:1234/?

Edit: Or at least http://localwebapp:1234/ equals http://localhost:1234/?

Answer

Oswald picture Oswald · Oct 17, 2013

When the browser sees http://localwebapp/ it first tries to determine the IP address of localwebapp. If this succeeds, the browser establishes a TCP connection with that host, using a specific port (which is 80 for HTTP, unless some other port is mentioned in the URL).

Resolving localwebapp to an IP address does not take port information into account, so pointing http://localwebapp/ to http://localhost:1234/ can only be done by means of a HTTP redirection.

To make http://localwebapp:1234/ the same as http://localhost:1234/, edit the hosts file of your operating system by adding the line

127.0.0.1 localwebapp

The location of the hosts file depends on the operating system. For UNIX-like operating systems, its usually /etc/hosts.

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