Apache VirtualHost on Mac OSX

note to self:

to set up a virtual host named viho for local web development testing on OSX El Capitan (and probably earlier):

  1. define an alias name in /etc/hosts:
   127.0.0.1       localhost viho
   ::1             localhost viho
  1. setup the virtual host configuration file /etc/apache2/other/viho.conf:
    <VirtualHost *:80>
      DocumentRoot "/path/to/where/the/files/are"
      ServerName viho
    </VirtualHost>

browse to http://viho/ and enjoy.