Attempting to use virtual hosting on my local web server (stand alone). I made the appropriate configurations in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf for virtual hosting, but receive "unknown host" when accessing these hosts and when starting apache (rcapache start). I also attempted to use different domain names with the same result. Any ideas? Do these hosts have to be listed in /etc/hosts?

Somewhere, you need to have in place something that translates a name to an IP number. Most people do this with a DNS server. Some do this with a WINS server. In a limited sense you could do it with an /etc/hosts file. The httpd.conf file tells the web server what to do with the request once it arrives.

Not sure what your setup is. If your using apache on Linux... check /etc/resolv.conf... It should contain the IP's and names of your ISPs nameservers. Example: nameserver 127.0.0.1 nameserver 64.208.159.244 nameserver 64.208.159.243 nameserver 24.206.159.244 nameserver 24.206.159.243 search ns2kw.shawcable.net search ns1kw.shawcable.net search ns2kw.tx.shawcable.net search ns1kw.tx.shawcable.net If you're using windows, make sure Gateway and DNS are properly configured.