Only Getting localhost for Local Site

I have Local Lighting installed using Big Sur. I cannot get my dev domain (*.local) to be assigned to my WordPress instance. I only get localhost. What do I do to change localhost to a local domain?

Ed - are you using the main Local and is the current version 5.9.3? I’ve not had an issue on Big Sur creating a new site with [NAME].local (where [NAME] is whatever site name I want to use.

Rick, I’m using 5.9.3+5100. I believe this is the main Local, although I’ve also tried Local Lightning. I can provide a [NAME].local, but it is never used – only localhost.

The first time I created a site, Local said it could not access etc/hosts and asked for my password. I tried my Mac system password, as well as my WordPress site password, but neither were accepted. I read that Local Lightning is more compatible with Big Sur. I also followed the directions about giving Local full disk access. If you can help with the etc/host password issue, I might be able to fully wipe the existing Local install and create a fresh version.

It sounds like there was some other piece of software listening on port 80 (the default for HTTP) and because of this Local turned on the localhost router mode.

You should be able to disable localhost router mode from “Preferences > Advanced > Router Mode”. The only issues is if the original piece of software that was preventing Local from using port 80 is still running.

This help doc goes into more detail about Local’s Router Mode:

https://localwp.com/help-docs/router-mode/

1 Like

I seem to have solved the problem with the local domains. I checked running processes and grepped for port 80 and came up with 5 instances of nginx. I quit FileZilla and Visual Studio Code and all ports opened. I’m now able to use dev.local:10003 to view my frontend. Why can’t I use dev.local to access wp-admin, as well?

Thanks for the assist.

@ed.s – I moved these messages to their own topic.

I’m glad you found those additional processes!

Now that those processes aren’t there, I think all you have to do is set the “Router Mode” to “Site Domains”.

As long as nothing is already listening on port 80, then Local will be able to correctly set up the router and you should be able to get the nice urls.

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.