Testing your new site without transferring DNS

If we have set up a site for you on our servers and you need to test out its functionality you will have to change some setting on your local computer.

Open your hosts (windows NT/2000) or hosts.sam file. It is usually in the C:\WINDOWS directory for windows 95 and 98 users, and C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc directory for windows NT and 2000 systems.

Open the file using Notepad or another text editor.

	
# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

127.0.0.1       localhost

Add a new line at the end of the hosts file :
```
199.218.10.200	yourdomain.com   
	
```
Save the file and exit.
Open a web browser and type in yourdomain.com.
Note : If you put yourdomain.com in the hosts file entry www.yourdomain.com will not point to the new IP, only yourdomain.com.
After testing remember to comment out (#) the line from the hosts file or delete the entry.