laravel4cookbook

Multisites 198
Adding Virtual Host Entries
When you type an address into your browser, and hit enter; your browser goes through a set of
steps in order to get you the web page you want. First, it queries what’s called a hosts file to see if
the address you typed in is a reference to a local IP address. If not found, the browser then queries
whatever DNS servers are available to the operating system.
A DNS server compares an address (e.g. example.com) with a list of IP addresses it has on file. If an
IP address is found; the browser’s request is forwarded to it and the web page is delivered.
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This is a rather simplified explanation of the steps involved. You can probably find more details at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.
In a sense; the hosts file acts as a DNS server before any remote requests are made. It follows that
the best place to add references to local IP addresses (local web servers) is in the hosts file.
To do that, open the hosts file:
1 sudo vim /etc/hosts
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If that command gives you errors then you can try running it without the sudo part. Sudo is (simply
speaking) a way to run a command at the highest permission level possible; to ensure it executes
correctly. If may be that you do not have sufficient privileges to run commands as root (with sudo).
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Vim is a teminal-based text editor. If you’re uneasy using it; what we’re after is editing /etc/hosts.
On a new line, at the bottom of /etc/hosts, add:
1 127.0.0.1 dev.tutorial
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This was extracted from /etc/hosts.