how to use ip address to go to site on shared server

[zollerwagner]

Say I have an ip address of: 11.11.11.11

How do I go to a site on a shared server at that ip address when I want to skip over the dns lookup?

I know there's a way to do this, but can't remember or find it via search.

[Shoggoth]

I typically just maintain a set of entries in my hosts file for this sort of thing.

11.11.11.11 widgets.com
11.11.11.11 www.widgets.com
11.11.11.11 mail.widgets.com
11.11.11.11 blue.widgets.com

Under Windows 2000 and XP you'll want to edit:
\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

And be sure to run "ipconfig /flushdns" before trying to access the site at the IP you've manually set, if you have already received a translation from your nameserver.

[zollerwagner]

Boy, you're fast!

Actually, I wanted to avoid adding this to my hosts file, because I'd like to know when there's a problem. I should have said that.

I had thought I could type in the address bar: [11.11.11.11...] but that didn't work. Isn't there a standard way to do this from the address bar?

[zollerwagner]

Well, I'm not sure what to attribute this to, but typing this in the address bar now works:
[11.11.11.11...]

Maybe a DNS server was down or something.