Applicable to:
- Plesk for Linux
- Plesk for Windows
Question
- How to access a website or webmail that exists in Plesk, but is not yet resolving to the Plesk server? For example, when a website was created for tests, recently migrated or its DNS zone has not propagated through the internet yet.
- How to preview a website migrated to a Plesk server before switching its DNS records?
Answer
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Go to Websites & Domains > example.com.
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Click Preview under the domain.
Note: Preview feature requires nginx reverse proxy. Otherwise, the Preview button will be unavailable.
Modifying the 'hosts' file allows overriding DNS for a domain on a particular machine and causes local machine to look directly at the IP address specified.
For example, the domain example.com is hosted on a server with IP address 203.0.113.2, but is not resolved to this IP from the Internet. To make your PC/Mac resolve this website to this particular IP address, add the line below to your local 'hosts' file:
CONFIG_TEXT: 203.0.113.2 example.com www.example.com
Modifying the 'hosts' file...
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on Windows OS
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Run the following command to open the 'hosts' file in Windows Notepad:
C:\> notepad C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts
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Add domain's IP address and a domain name on a new line.
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Click File > Save to save your changes.
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on macOS
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Open Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
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Open the
hosts
file by typing the following line in a terminal window:# sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
Type your domain user password when prompted.
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Add domain's IP address and a domain name on a new line.
Note: The file contains some comments (lines starting with a hash "#" symbol) and some default hostname mappings (for example, 127.0.0.1 – local host). Add your new mappings after the default mappings.
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Save the hosts file by pressing 'Control+x' and answering
y
. -
Make changes take effect by flushing the DNS cache with the following command:
# dscacheutil -flushcache
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on Linux OS
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In Linux terminal, open the 'hosts' file in a text editor:
# vi /etc/hosts
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Add domain's IP address and a domain name on a new line.
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Save the changes and close the file.
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Go to Tools & Settings > IP Addresses > click on a public IP address, to which the required domain is assigned in Plesk > select an offline website as a Default site from the drop-down menu.
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Now, to access the domain, type in the public IP address chosen above in a web-browser: http://203.0.112.2:80.
Note: example.com should be assigned to this IP address in Plesk at Domains > example.com > Hosting Settings. Otherwise, it will not appear in the list.
Comments
1 comment
I did what was suggested for "Accessing a website using a public server IP address" but by visiting the example.ext site I am redirected to the server IP. I think there is a step missing from the procedure indicated.
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