How to test your website in-before you change DNS?
During website transfer most users want to test their website functioning before chaning DNS entries.
In order to see your website without domain delegation you will need to add your domain and our server's IP-address to windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts file on your PC. You can open that file with any text editor, including notepad.
Entries must have a format of Our_server_IP mydomain.com (Our_server_IP - IP-address of our server, sent to your e-mail alongside hosting control panel access data). Do not forget to save the modified file. After this procedure is complete, browser will know what IP requested website is located at and will be able to open it without making queries to external DNS servers.
Example:
IP-address of current server for new orders: 91.230.54.17
In file windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts we add
91.230.54.17 mydomain.ru
91.230.54.17 www.mydomain.ru
Saving file!
Then open tested website in browser. It is recommended to press Ctrl+F5 after page is loaded first time to avoid the cashing of old DNS values. That will guarante that page is loaded from our server.
Warning! After you'vecompleted configuring your website and changed domain DNS you need removed entries you've added to windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts.
With OS Windows XP hosts file can be edited with no problems of any kind.
If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7
In Windows Vista and Windows 7 a complication arises - a "straightforward" editing of hosts file will end up with system prohibiting you from saving changes.
To edit hosts file do the following:
1. Find notepad application. It is located in C:\windows\ folder root. Notepad must be launched with Administrator rights. Riht click the file to get the context menu and choose "launch as Administrator".
2. Next, in notepad use "Open file" menu, move to C:\windos\system32\drivers\ets. Upon entering you may notice that hosts file is invisible. In this case to open it, manually add hosts to the end of "File name" field or set explorer to show all hidden files. Click open. File is ready for editing and saving.
Add necessary entries, save the file and open your website as described above.