How Can I Test or Preview My Website Before Switching DNS?

A.If you have uploaded your site to the cPnel, you can preview using the ip link sent to you in your welcome email.

B.Host File

In the event your site needs to use the domain name to operate i.e. Wordpress / Joomla / Magento, you can use a local host file method.

Windows

1.  Locate the HOSTS file on your computer. Typically it is in one of the following locations:

Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 - C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows 95/98/Me - C:\windows\hosts

2.  Open this file with a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad (in later versions of Windows, you may need to run Notepad as an administrator to gain access to the file.

3.  Once the file is opened, consider performing a "Save As" so you have an original copy of the file that you can restore later.  You will see two columns of information, the first containing IP addresses and the second containing host names. By default, a windows hosts file should be similar to the following:

127.0.0.1 localhost



You can add additional lines to this file that will point requests for a particular domain to your new server's IP address. You will find your IP address in your new account e-mail. This needs to be replaced below where X.X.X.X is shown.
 
127.0.0.1 localhost
X.X.X.X example.com
X.X.X.X www.example.com


4.  Save your changes and then restart any currently open browsers

5.  Once restarted you can then simply navigate to www.example.com this will then load from your new account with Lenasi Hosting ignoring your current DNS setup.


Mac

1.  Either by start typing Terminal on the Spotlight, or by going into Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal.

2.  Open the hosts by typing on the Terminal that you have just opened:

$ sudo nano /private/etc/hosts

Type your user password when prompted.

3. The hosts file contains some comments (lines starting with the # symbol), as well as some default hostname mappings (e.g. 127.0.0.1 – localhost).

Simply append your new mappings underneath the default ones. Or edit one of the default values if you know what you are doing!
You can navigate the file using the arrow keys.

4.  When done editing the hosts file, press control-o to save the file.

Press enter on the filename prompt, and control-x to exit the editor.

5. On Leopard, you can issue a simple Terminal command to flush the DNS cache, and have your host file changes to take immediate effect:

  $ dscacheutil -flushcache
  • 0 Users Found This Useful
Was this answer helpful?

Related Articles

Enabling Or Disabling PHP Modules

We provide the facility to enable/disable PHP modules/libraries per account.To enable a specific...

Can I Set Up Custom Name Servers?

We can provide custom name servers with the correct glue records associated, providing that the...

How Can I Migrate My cPanel Accounts To Lenasi Hosting

Two separate methods exist for server-to-server migrations.  Both are managed by us to ensure...

How do I add another domain to my Hosting Account?

To add a new domain to your existing hosting account: 1. Log into your cPanel control panel2....

SSH Access

For security purposes, we lock down SSH access to our platform by IP address.  If you wish to...