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
-
Go to Websites & Domains > example.com.
-
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...
-
on Windows OS
-
Run the following command to open the 'hosts' file in Windows Notepad:
C:\> notepad C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts
-
Add domain's IP address and a domain name on a new line.
-
Click File > Save to save your changes.
-
on macOS
-
Open Applications > Utilities > Terminal.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
-
-
on Linux OS
-
In Linux terminal, open the 'hosts' file in a text editor:
# vi /etc/hosts
-
Add domain's IP address and a domain name on a new line.
-
Save the changes and close the file.
-
-
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.
-
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
3 comments
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.
NGINX is installed but the preview button is still missing (v. 18.0.65)
NGINX is installed but the preview button is still missing (v. 18.0.65)
Please sign in to leave a comment.