Access virtual hosts of a server without the need of host redirection or DNS.
== ABOUT ==
Overwrite the Host HTTP header to request a specific virtual host from a remote server.
Often enough while waiting for DNS propagation or standing up a replacement site, developers edit the hosts file on their system to achieve the same effect. This extension basically does the same thing without the hassle.
When detecting outgoing HTTP requests from your Chrome browser to the VHost Domain we redirect to the VHost IP. When detecting outgoing HTTP requests from your Chrome browser to the VHost IP, the extension simply adds a Host header containing the domain name specified in the VHost Domain. Any requests to sites other than the VHost Domain and VHost IP are ignored, so browsing other sites won't be impacted.
== HOW TO USE ==
- Enable -
Click the VHost icon in the top right and enter the desired domain name.
When a domain is present and [x] Enabled is checked, the VHost icon turns red. That means all websites will be requested with the entered domain.
- Disable -
Untick the [ ] Enabled checkbox. The icon will turn green-ish which means VHost is disabled and all websites will be requested with the regular host name.
== Source ==
I released the source code on GitHub: https://github.com/Gachl/Virtual-Hosts-Chrome-Extension
I was unable to improve this extension with more features and I saw it being used by quite a lot of people. So thank you for that! If you need any features you can find the code or a fork of someone who already implemented more stuff over on GitHub.
== THANK YOU ==
For using this extension. If you have the time to spare, please consider rating it in the Web Store.
Many thanks to mcarver (https://github.com/mcarver) for:
- Cleaning my very basic JS
- Adding request filtering
- Adding redirect
- Adding Chrome storage sync
- Making this thing better in many ways
For the next version I hope to merge Zacqarys changes (https://github.com/Zacqary/Virtual-Hosts-Chrome-Extension) to this version.
Latest reviews
- (2023-06-04) 斎木稔貴: 内部的にリダイレクトされてIPでアクセスするだけなので、hostsファイルの代わりにはなりません。
- (2023-05-04) Replaces the virtual host with the ip in the address bar and thus does not work.
- (2022-06-23) Marco Martorana: Non funziona, non ha lo stesso comportamento di modificare il file hosts
- (2021-07-25) ezikhoyo: Currently broken, going to any page displays "Hmmm… can't reach this page" with ERR_INVALID_ARGUMENT as the reason.
- (2021-07-20) Cache: What's not mentioned in the documentation is that this extension also works to redirect one domain to another. You can put the target domain in the VHOST IP field. So this is a nice utility to redirect example.com to dev.example.com. Perfect for my use case.
- (2021-06-24) max chen: 火狐的都可以添加多个啊,这个怎么就一个。。
- (2020-08-05) Scott Bain: This actually works to sign into wordpress. I had tried a few other options first but this one works for me.
- (2020-06-23) nguyễn(グェン)syusei(集成): これはhostsファイルのように指定したIPで指定したドメインを参照するものではなく、指定したドメインにアクセスしようとすると指定したIPそのものでアクセスする。 IP直接指定して見れるものとまったく同じであり、hostsファイルの書き換えの代わりにならない。 全くなんの役にも立たない拡張機能
- (2020-01-12) Issam Najm: Great, but it works only for one website, you need to extend it guys thanks!
- (2019-12-30) David Pisarek: Has not worked in years. Use something else or edit your hosts file.
- (2019-11-13) james f: Just doesn't seem to work. Using Chrome on a Mac if that matters. To see if it was entirely broken. I can enter any IP address and it makes no difference. Nothing "breaks". I tried clearing cookies, refreshing clearing cache, quitting Chrome and reopening..
- (2019-11-11) Rack Monitor: Doesnt work anymore - always says This site can’t be reached
- (2019-06-18) Walter Antolini: not working
- (2019-06-10) Helt Long: 只能修改一个,要不然就可以用了,真是可惜
- (2019-03-30) Bjorn J: Simply changes the target domain to the VHOST IP: example.com -> 1.1.1.1. Which is useless because we have multiple VHOSTS behind the IP. So it simply redirects to server main host.
- (2019-03-25) replaces any matching text in the URL with the ip address, instead of acting as a true virtual host. Makes it impossible to use a hosting file manager (because the site URL is usually a part of the path) at the same time as troubleshooting a front end. Also, host references in code are not handled, so it's only marginally useful. basically, I still have to rely on windows hosts file.
- (2018-11-24) Tobias Barth: Doesn't work at all.
- (2018-11-20) Robert Harrington: Didn't work. Installed and the address window popped up once. After that, clicking on it only showed an empty box.
- (2018-09-24) Tamás Jakabfi: Useless
- (2018-06-13) Frank Wuebbeling: Does exactly what I want. We have a backup copy of our web server running on a host with a different name. Accessing that host directly immediately redirects back to the "real" server. This extension allows us to access the backup server and stay there. Used to do this with clumsy proxies up to now. Thumbs up!
- (2018-05-14) Giovanni C: It works as expected: setting mywebsite.com to ip 1.2.3.4 is requesting content from mywebsite.com virtual host on 1.2.3.4 server even if the original DNS is different. BUT there is a BIG problem: all the subdomains are redirecting to the same ip as well. So if you have a "media.mywebsite.com" domain on a storage host, it will try to find it on 1.2.3.4 as well. :/
- (2018-05-02) Ash Nasiri: It saved us a lot of time and hassle to achieve something so simple - loved it
- (2018-05-01) Mark Hinson: Simple quick solution for site development
- (2018-04-07) Steven: Ändert die DNS Auflösung. Wie das Anpassen der Hosts-Datei. Leider nur eine Einstellung möglich.
- (2018-04-04) Michael Wilson: Just installed this, and it worked perfectly for my use case. I needed to access an old site we had just replaced, so that I could grab a single file linked from a specific page.
- (2018-02-13) Assistenza Marco Polo: Doesn't let to override hostname to IP resolution like you could do editing hosts file of your OS.
- (2018-01-31) J Ro: Only a redirect as far as I can tell.
- (2018-01-15) Stefan Norman: just replaces the URL doesn't submit the HTTP_HOST request to another IP like expected
- (2017-10-06) Carlos Alejandro: Funciona perfectamente, la unica desventaja que solo puedes agregar una sola IP para redireccion
- (2017-09-03) Jared James: Wow! I was looking on how to view my temporary website before I point the NS and this extension solved my issue for such a long time! Appreciated this stuff!
- (2017-08-04) Juan Fernando Pelaez: No funciona para nada
- (2017-07-08) The BiemBie Company: I used this plugin to build a new wordpress site, but found that the the customize function was completely eliminated. Only a grey screen came up instead of the customize of the theme. Also it happened that when activating plugins, they would not appear in the menu. The updates also did not work. The end result was to complete the site live under a maintenance front page.
- (2017-04-23) Rick Levine: Works great. Have used many times when setting up new websites prior to transferring from previous host.
- (2017-04-05) Daniel Passaro: Does what's intended, but a little confusing to use. Would be great if the virtual host applied to ONLY the current tab, or the domain being visited in the current tab. Instead this applies the new hostname to every tab in your browser session, meaning if you're debugging a site and switch tabs to look up docs or read StackOverflow, your other tabs will most likely be broken. Not impossible to work around, but it's very poor for usability and adds pointless frustration to an otherwise very useful extension.
- (2017-03-01) Bruno Baronet: It does one job and it Works. VERY Simple! Perfect to work around Web Hosts who block access to your hosting before the DNS have been redirected. Thanks!
- (2017-02-16) Иван: Отличное расширение, спасибо!
- (2017-01-15) Oktay KUZU: sadece ip ye yönlendiriyor bi işe yaramıyor.