How do I check my website before I switch to DNS?
This article will help you to check your website on a new server or new hosting account during the migration period, while your website is still up and pointing to the old server. Before you tell our help to point your website’s IP address to the new server to complete the migration, you will need to be sure that the website loads properly into the new server.
Below are the steps to check your hosts file :
1. Locate the HOSTS file on your computer. Typically it is in one of the following locations:
Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 : C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows 95/98/Me : C:\windows\hosts
2. Open this file with a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad.
3. Right-click on Notepad and select the option to Run as Administrator, otherwise you may not be able to save this file later.
Then, open the file. Consider performing a “Save As” so you have an original copy of the file that you can restore later.
You will see two columns of information, the first containing IP addresses and the second containing host names.
By default, a windows hosts file should be similar to the following:
You can add additional lines to this file that will point requests for a particular domain to your new server’s IP address. Example:
123.100.254.4 example.com
123.100.254.4 www.example.com
5. Save your changes.
6. Restart any currently open browsers. You may also want to flush your DNS cache.
In Windows XP, go to Start, and then Run, then type “cmd” and hit enter. Type the following:
ipconfig /flushdns
7. Visit your new site using http://example.com/
This is the procedure for switch your website to DNS. You can check the DNS here.
Learn the info General DNS Propagation Information Here