View before Propagation

like we do on PCs

[mcjohnson]

Hello all,

on the PC side of things, if I want to view a site before the domain name has propagated, especially a site that is dependent upon the domain name as a URL (as when installing scripts) we open up the HOSTS file, make a few tweaks, restart our broswer, and voila, that PC is fooling into thinking that the IP and web address go together.

Is there a similar method for a MAC? I have a client who is going to be traveling with her MAC and wants to be able to vbiew the porogress of her ECommerce site while away.

Please let me know if that is doable.

Thanks,

Pat

[Slade]

OS X is unixy and should also have a hosts file somewhere under /etc

[edited by: travelin_cat at 2:18 pm (utc) on Oct. 16, 2008]
[edit reason] No URL's Please. Thank you! [/edit]

[swa66]

Windows copied the idea of a HOSTS file from unix.

On leopard at least the standard /etc/hosts still works like in the beginning of the Internet.

e.g.:

$ ping www.example.com
PING www.example.com (208.77.188.166): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 208.77.188.166: icmp_seq=0 ttl=55 time=162.047 ms
...
$ sudo vi /etc/hosts

You likely will get a prompt for your password unless you recently used sudo.

now create an extra line reading

127.0.0.1           www.example.com

and

$ ping www.example.com
PING www.example.com (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from [b]127.0.0.1[/b]: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.055 ms
...

or make sur the cache of your browser is cleared.

To undo:

$ sudo vi /etc/hosts

and delete that line you added.