Features

A detailed guide to everything LocalDomain can do.

Custom Local Domains

Create any domain you want and point it to a local port:

Domains are added to your system hosts file automatically. No need to edit /etc/hosts or C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts by hand.

Trusted HTTPS

LocalDomain creates a local Certificate Authority (CA) on your machine and installs it in your OS trust store. Every domain you create with HTTPS gets a real certificate signed by this CA.

What this means:

• Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge show a green lock
• No "Your connection is not private" warnings
• No need to click through security exceptions
• Works exactly like a production HTTPS site

Use cases for HTTPS:

• OAuth callback URLs that require HTTPS
• Testing cookie Secure and SameSite attributes
• Service workers (require HTTPS)
• Mixed content issues between HTTP and HTTPS

Reverse Proxy

Each domain is routed through a reverse proxy powered by Caddy (opens in a new tab). When you visit myapp.local, the proxy forwards the request to 127.0.0.1:3000 (or whatever port you set).

This means:

• Your dev server doesn't need to listen on port 80 or 443
• Multiple domains can run simultaneously on different ports
• HTTPS termination happens at the proxy — your dev server stays plain HTTP

XAMPP Service Integration

LocalDomain integrates directly with XAMPP Apache so you can manage PHP projects and VirtualHosts without editing Apache files by hand.

What you can do:

• Set and auto-detect your XAMPP install path
• Start/stop Apache from the app
• Scan existing httpd-vhosts.conf entries and import them
• Create XAMPP-type domains with a document root
• Keep friendly local domains while Apache runs on a non-80 port (recommended)

Important: if XAMPP Apache and LocalDomain both try to use port 80, one service will fail to start. Keep LocalDomain on 80/443 and change Apache to another port (for example 8080) so LocalDomain can proxy traffic correctly.

Full setup and internals: XAMPP Service

Wildcard Domains

Enable the wildcard toggle on a domain to make all subdomains resolve automatically:

*.myapp.local → 127.0.0.1:3000

This is useful for:

• Multi-tenant apps — tenant1.myapp.local, tenant2.myapp.local all hit the same server
• Dynamic subdomains — your app reads the subdomain from the Host header
• Microservices — route different subdomains to the same entry point

Public Tunnels

Share any local domain with the internet. LocalDomain supports three tunnel types:

• Quick Tunnel — free random URL via Cloudflare, no account needed
• Named Tunnel — persistent URL on your own domain via Cloudflare
• SSH Tunnel — reverse port forwarding through your own VPS

Click the Share button on any domain row to open the tunnel dialog. See the Tunnels page for full details on each type.

Request Inspector

Click on any domain to open the Request Inspector — a detailed view of all HTTP traffic hitting that domain.

Table columns:

• Time — when the request was received
• Method — GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.
• Path — the URL path that was requested
• Status — color-coded HTTP status code (green for 2xx, yellow for 3xx, red for 4xx/5xx)
• Duration — how long the request took (shown in µs, ms, or seconds)
• Size — response body size (shown in B, KB, or MB)

Detail panel: Click any row to see the full request details:

• General — method, URI, status, duration, size, remote IP, protocol (e.g., HTTP/1.1), timestamp
• Query Parameters — parsed key-value pairs from the URL query string
• Request Headers — all headers sent by the client
• Response Headers — all headers returned by your server

Think of it like the Network tab in browser DevTools, but for all your local domains.

Access Log Toggle

Each domain has an access log toggle in the Request Inspector toolbar. When disabled, no requests are captured for that domain. Enable it to start logging — useful for debugging or monitoring specific domains without noise from others.

Audit Log

Every change you make is recorded:

• Domain created, modified, or deleted
• Services started or stopped
• Access logging enabled or disabled
• Timestamp for each action

This gives you a complete history of what happened and when.

Settings

Access settings from the sidebar. Here's what you can configure:

General

• Start on boot — launch the daemon automatically when your computer starts
• HTTP Port — the port Caddy listens on for HTTP traffic (default: 80)
• HTTPS Port — the port Caddy listens on for HTTPS traffic (default: 443)

Service Control

• Start or stop the reverse proxy from the settings page
• View the current status of the proxy server

Certificate Authority

• See whether your local CA is generated and trusted
• Trust Certificate button — installs the CA in your OS trust store if it's not already trusted
• You may need to restart your browser after trusting the CA

Tunnel Defaults

Pre-fill SSH tunnel settings so you don't have to enter them every time:

• Cloudflare Tunnel Token — default token for Named Tunnels (manual mode)
• Default SSH Host — your VPS hostname
• Default SSH User — your SSH username
• Default SSH Key Path — path to your private key

Danger Zone

• Uninstall — removes the background service, stops all proxying, and cleans up hosts file entries. Requires confirmation.

Setup Wizard

On first launch, LocalDomain walks you through a 3-step setup:

1. Install Background Service — installs the daemon that manages your hosts file and proxy. Requires your admin/root password.
2. Start Reverse Proxy — starts the Caddy proxy so domains can be routed.
3. Create Default Domain — creates domain.local pointing to 127.0.0.1 so you can verify everything works.

You can skip the wizard and set things up manually, but the wizard handles everything in under a minute.

Background Service

The daemon runs as a system service:

• macOS — launchd (com.localdomain.daemon)
• Windows — Windows Service (localdomain-daemon)
• Linux — systemd (localdomain-daemon)

It starts automatically on boot (configurable in Settings) and runs with the minimal privileges needed to manage the hosts file and proxy.

System Tray

LocalDomain lives in your system tray. You can:

• Toggle domains on/off directly from the tray menu
• Start/stop services
• See daemon and proxy status at a glance
• Close the main window — the app keeps running in the tray

Dark Mode

LocalDomain follows your system theme automatically, or you can toggle between light and dark mode manually in the sidebar.