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

[Ben]

Why don't you just tell them your ip, the dns name and how to add it into their hosts file?

[falko]

Originally Posted by andrewt

Or I can have the user modify his PC's \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file.

Yes, do it that way.

[crapufish]

There is any way to do what andrewt originally requested?

Thanks!

Dorian

[falko]

Apart from modifying the clients' hosts file - no.

[crapufish]

And how ca I do that?

[Leszek]

Hi!

You could make a .bat file for example dns.bat and write a line like this into it:

echo 195.136.127.12 www.client.pl >> C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

and then send it to Your clients.The path above is for Windows XP.
Unfortunetly it differs in other Windows systems.

[crapufish]

Yea, but what about you want to call a certain URL on the server itself?
I mean, let's suppose you have a cron job which calls an URL on a virtual host hosted on the server. The virtual host should be accesible with it's name (like www.virutalhost.com)? This doesn't work on my system so I guess I should use something like http://localhost/~virtualhost/.

Thanks!

[falko]

Originally Posted by crapufish

Yea, but what about you want to call a certain URL on the server itself?

Then you must modify /etc/hosts.