Can’t access new WordPress site until I change nameservers

  • I have a website in need of major improvement and would like to create a new website using WordPress. The plan is to work on the new website and only change the nameservers once the new site is ready. Therefore all current visitors will continue to see the old website until I’m ready to go live.

    The websites are on different servers and with different hosts. I’ve acquired webspace and used the new hosts auto script to install WordPress. I believed I could access the new site using the IP Address followed by /account name.

    Unfortunately this doesn’t appear to work and I’m being told by my host that owing to WordPress making use of mod_rewrite to create clean URLs, you can’t access it without an error appearing.

    They’ve pointed me to a wiki page that says Reasons the “Hosts” File is Superior to the Apache mod_userdir and explains that I need to add the following entries to the “hosts” file to create a mapping system between the Domain Name and IP address of our server.

    serveripaddress yourdomain.co.uk
    serveripaddress https://www.yourdomain.co.uk

    However, I just don’t know where to start, what file it is referring to?

    I only want to access my new website and get it ready before I launch it.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    Richard

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • One option is that you could add an /etc/hosts entry on your local machine to point to the IP address of the new server. You will have to remove it in order to view your old website.

    The local machine’s hosts file is authoritative in the case of DNS name lookups.

    Thread Starter rsmith81

    (@rsmith81)

    Hi Pickwp,

    How would I do that, are you able to point me to a suitable article?

    Richard

    It is literally just a text file on your machine. If you’re on macOS it’s the /etc/hosts file. You add the entries to the file and that is all there is to it.

    Also, google is your friend. Try searching for “how to edit hosts file Windows” or “how to edit hosts file Linux”

    Thread Starter rsmith81

    (@rsmith81)

    Thanks pickup, worked a treat, located file, added the new ip address, I’m now seeing the new website. Appreciate your help

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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