Viewing a site before DNS propagates

[andrewt]

Hi all,

I looked over the httpd.conf and vhosts files that ISPConfig outputs but wasn't able to answer this question for myself (and couldn't find it among the archives).

I've just set up a site for someone (say, foo.com) using ISPConfig, and the base directory for that website will be /var/www/web3/web/. It'll be a day or so until DNS changes fully propagate so that foo.com actually resolves to this ISPConfig-based server.

In the meantime, is there a IP address-based URL via which the user can view his site as he works on it? E.g., something in the spirt of ~user that works for individual users' homepages, like 1.2.3.4/~web3webdir?) If nothing works out of the box, I know I can just copy and tweak the VirtualHost in /etc/httpd/conf/vhosts/Vhosts_ispconfig.conf. Or I can have the user modify his PC's \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file.

But I'm wondering if there's a better solution (that won't get blown away if I then make changes to the server via ISPConfig).

Thanks!

Andrew