Alias hostname for localhost

Question

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 1

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.

Answer 2

the second option (just alias the hostname without the port information) is possible by adding localwebapp to your hostsfile ( /etc/hosts in *NIX, c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in windows)

adding

127.0.0.1 localwebapp

should do the trick (assuming your local python script does not do virtual hosting and serves the same content for all domains requested)

Answer 3

You can make localwebapp as alias for localhost in /etc/hosts. Then you can run a webserver (Apache and friends) to detect that hostname.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName localwebapp

    # redirect elsewhere
    Redirect localhost:1234

</VirtualHost>