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After installing TeamViewer, I have changed the wampserver port to 8080, so the address is http://localhost:8080.

For the host file located at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\, I have also made the change as below

BEFORE
127.0.0.1 www.example.com

AFTER
127.0.0.1:8080 www.example.com

When I access www.example.com, it doesn't redirect to my wampserver, how can I fix it?

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4
  • You need NGNIX or Apache HTTP server as a proxy server for forwarding http requests to appropriate application -> which listens particular port (or do it with CNAME which provides Hosting company)
    – Musa
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 18:08
  • 1
    httpd.apache.org/docs/trunk/vhosts/examples.html nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/examples/server_blocks
    – Musa
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 18:16
  • Maybe review this and switch the accepted answer to the netsh answer? I ended up here when trying to figure out how to map .test domains to my docker images locally on Windows 10, and the netsh answer worked like a charm!
    – Jereme
    Commented Feb 14, 2019 at 14:55
  • The question is: are you trying to redirect a whole host to a single port (?!) or just the port 80 (of that host) to port 8080? Most answers here are on how to redirect (or at least try to redirect...;-) port 80 of a host to port 8080 of your "localhost". Example: https://www.example.com must go to port 8080? or to the default 443?(as it should) Which means: do you want a https also be redirected to port 8080 of your localhost? Or you do not care at all where this will be redirected?
    – ilias iliadis
    Commented May 28, 2020 at 18:31

11 Answers 11

Reset to default
365

I managed to achieve this by using Windows builtin networking tool netsh.

As Mat points out: The hosts file is for hostname resolution only, so a combination of the two did the trick for me.

Example

Overview

example.test:80
 |                           <--Link by Hosts File
 +--> 127.65.43.21:80
       |                     <--Link by netsh Utility
       +--> localhost:8081

Actions

  • Started my server on localhost:8081

  • Added my "local DNS" in the hosts file as a new line

    127.65.43.21     example.test
    • Any free address in the subnet 127.0.0.0/8 (127.x.x.x) can be used.
    • Note: I am assuming 127.65.43.21:80 is not occupied by another service.
      You can confirm this by checking the output of netstat -a -n -p TCP | grep "LISTENING"

  • Added the following network configuration, using netsh:
    netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=80 listenaddress=127.65.43.21 connectport=8081 connectaddress=127.0.0.1

  • I can now access the server at http://example.test

Notes:

  • These commands/file modifications need to be executed with Admin rights
  • netsh portproxy needs IPv6 libraries, even just to use v4tov4. Typically these will be installed by default, otherwise install with netsh interface ipv6 install

You can see the entry you have added with the command:

netsh interface portproxy show v4tov4

You can remove the entry with the following command:

netsh interface portproxy delete v4tov4 listenport=80 listenaddress=127.65.43.21

Domains forced to HTTPS via preloaded HSTS

I recently had the problem with a webserver that does not support https, only http, and I was constantly getting blocked

My Work-Around has been to use a name without a tld or one that is not known and use the forward slash at the ending. e.g.

hosts file: 127.0.1.101 aw

address in address bar

In Any case you can check if HTTPS is forced visiting chrome://net-internals/#hsts and Query HSTS/PKP domain , Result should be not Found

Links exposing attempts at certain workarounds:1, 2 These Workarounds attemp to add exceptions which should be able to be viewed in Insecure Sites and possibly also in the Redirection configuration sections

Here you will find a list of TLDs forced to HTTPS

Links to Resources:

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21
  • 34
    This should be the accepted answer because the tools are already installed in my base windows 10 install and this does exactly what I needed. I was considering installing apache and mod_proxy but this is a much better solution.
    – Max Young
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 11:52
  • 4
    Doesn't work for me. Netsh seems to forward the address, but not the port.
    – steph643
    Commented May 15, 2017 at 7:46
  • 3
    I use docker's portainer. It uses localhost on port 9000. Modding the command above, I use portainer.local without having to specify a port on the address. I first, add 127.0.0.1 as the address to match portainer.local in my hosts file. Then I run: netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=80 listenaddress=127.0.0.1 connectport=9000 connectaddress=127.0.0.1 Hit enter key in cmd/powershell to run it. After this, exit netsh by typing exit. In the browser, typing http://portainer.local now takes me to where http://localhost:9000 used to. This worked like a charm for me.
    – EffectiX
    Commented Jul 23, 2018 at 14:33
  • 2
    Default answer may be outdated depending on whether you're using ipv4 or ipv6 routing now: netsh interface portproxy add v4tov6 listenport=80 listenaddress=127.65.43.21 connectport=8081 connectaddress=::1 works for me.
    – Sentient
    Commented May 30, 2022 at 0:02
  • 2
    Just a heads up for anyone who does decide to do this -- it may be hard to remember what you did several years later when you get a new computer! Or if you're trying to get someone else set up on your project. So bear that in mind as a tradeoff for the relative ease of getting this set up vs e.g. nginx where you could commit a config file to your repo.
    – Charles Wood
    Commented Sep 6, 2022 at 21:10
232

The hosts file is for host name resolution only (on Windows as well as on Unix-like systems). You cannot put port numbers in there, and there is no way to do what you want with generic OS-level configuration - the browser is what selects the port to choose.

So use bookmarks or something like that.
(Some firewall/routing software might allow outbound port redirection, but that doesn't really sound like an appealing option for this.)

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2
  • 10
    how to use bookmarks , can you lead us to a link or some documentation or tutorials about this
    – adham dwikat
    Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 9:03
  • I think he means browser bookmarks
    – iqfareez
    Commented Jun 19 at 11:51
198

What you want can be achieved by modifying the hosts file through Fiddler 2 application.

Follow these steps:

  1. Install Fiddler2

  2. Navigate to Fiddler2 menu:- Tools > HOSTS.. (Click to select)

  3. Add a line like this:-

    localhost:8080 www.mydomainname.com

  4. Save the file & then checkout www.mydomainname.com in browser.

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12
  • 47
    This is a bad solution. You need to have Fiddler running at all times.
    – James Huckabone
    Commented Jan 19, 2015 at 23:17
  • 76
    @JamesHuckabone: Do you have a better solution? we'd love that!
    – Rajat Gupta
    Commented Jan 20, 2015 at 4:37
  • 17
    I get Error 400 Bad Request when i use this method
    – Sam
    Commented Mar 12, 2015 at 15:17
  • 5
    this no longer seems to work. Tried it with both fiddler2 and fiddler4
    – basher
    Commented Dec 17, 2015 at 18:04
  • 1
    @basher U still can script it at Fiddler's Rules.js for sure. Hosts functionallity on Fiddler is NOT the Windows hosts files, it's a recreation of that names to make them easy to work with. Is like the Autoresponders, are just a subset of what you can do scripting it directly. If you can't do something with menus, script it.
    – m3nda
    Commented Apr 16, 2016 at 5:37
17

Fiddler2 -> Rules -> Custom Rules

then find function OnBeforeRequest on put in the next script at the end:

if (oSession.HostnameIs("mysite.com")){
    oSession.host="localhost:39901";
    oSession.hostname="mysite.com";
}
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2
  • Indeed Fiddler is so much powerfull than expect to not run a webserver on port 80, or even Skype... On Windows works better than in Linux with Mono, at least the capturing features, cuz Linux do not uses Inet from CLRL. This is a nicer way to do things on Fiddler, cuz it's exportable with 1 file.
    – m3nda
    Commented Apr 16, 2016 at 5:35
  • It works as long as you also set oSession.hostname="localhost" and not "mysite.com".
    – Trismuto
    Commented Sep 20, 2024 at 21:28
7

-You can use any free address in the network 127.0.0.0/8 , in my case needed this for python flask and this is what I have done : add this line in the hosts file (you can find it is windows under : C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc ) :

127.0.0.5 flask.dev

  • Make sure the port is the default port "80" in my case this is what in the python flask: app.run("127.0.0.5","80")

  • now run your code and browse flask.dev

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6

This doesn't give the requested result exactly, however, for what I was doing, I was not fussed with adding the port into the URL within a browser.

I added the domain name to the hosts file

127.0.0.1      example.com

Ran my HTTP server from the domain name on port 8080

php -S example.com:8080

Then accessed the website through port 8080

http://example.com:8080

Just wanted to share in case anyone else is in a similar situation.

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2
  • This is easily the simplest answer here! Thanks
    – Avrohom Yisroel
    Commented Jul 4, 2023 at 18:55
  • Unfortunately there are cases where putting the port in the browser isn't enough. In my case, part of my site's code is generated somewhere else and all the links don't include the port number. The completed site will be fine since it will run on port 80, but until then I want the links to work at port 8080.
    – Peter
    Commented Aug 16, 2023 at 16:33
2

You need NGNIX or Apache HTTP server as a proxy server for forwarding http requests to appropriate application -> which listens particular port (or do it with CNAME which provides Hosting company). It is most powerful solution and this is just a really easy way to keep adding new subdomains, or to add new domains automatically when DNS records are pointed at the server.

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1

If what is happening is that you have another server running on localhost and you want to give this new server a different local hostname like http://teamviewer/

I think that what you are actually looking for is Virtual Hosts functionality. I use Apache so I do not know how other web daemons support this. Maybe it is called Alias. Here is the Apache documentation:

Apache Virtual Hosts examples

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1

Using netsh with connectaddress=127.0.0.1 did not work for me.

Despite looking everywhere on the internet I could not find the solution which solved this for me, which was to use connectaddress=127.x.x.x (i.e. any 127. ipv4 address, just not 127.0.0.1) as this appears to link back to localhost just the same but without the restriction, so that the loopback works in netsh.

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1
  • I suggest you to remove the first and the last paragraphs. Just tell that existing solutions did not work and you found another one. Otherwise your answer looks a lot like a comment, so people might flag it as "not an answer" and it will be removed.
    – user1143634
    Commented Jan 14, 2018 at 14:38
-1

Alternate way

  1. Install Redirector
  2. Click Edit redirects -> Create New Redirect

enter image description here

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1
  • 4
    If you dont understand the question. Dont try to answer it.
    – Pushkraj Jori
    Commented Nov 18, 2022 at 5:48
-1

Well, I don't know specifically about wampserver or whatever, but I had a program running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/ and I wanted to change the domain name

so I inputted 127.0.0.1 myhost.local www.myhost.local in the host file and went to myhost.local:5000 and it showed the thing it was meant to!

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