Viewing Website via IP address

[linusmorris]

Hi there,

Firstly I am a complete novice and I come in peace. I'm sure this is an easy fix but my searching skills have not been good enough to find the answer.

So I am moving a website to a new hosting account and I would like to view the site without changing the name servers and placing the site live. Ideally I will paste the IP address into the address bar and my site should show up, instead I am getting the following >

ERROR 404 - PAGE NOT FOUND
Why am I seeing this page?
How to find the correct spelling and folder
404 Errors After Clicking WordPress Links
How to modify your .htaccess file

Can someone pretty please point me in the right direction?

Many thanks,

Linus

 

[cPAdminsMichael]

Hi Linus,

You COULD use mod_userdir, where you can access the site by hostname/~username - but my experience is that changing your local hosts file is better as it also resolves your site's links, etc.
So in your hosts file, just add a

ip.address.of.the.server website.domainname

Your hosts file location depends on your operating system.
If you use a Linux variant (incl. MacOS): It's located in /etc/hosts
If you are on a Windows, it's located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

- Michael

 

[linusmorris]

Hi Michael,

Thank you very much for the response, unfortunately, much of this flies over my head though.

The URL in question is > 404 - PAGE NOT FOUND

Can I change the .htaccess file to allow me to view the website via that domain? Sorry if this sounds obvious/silly but I am very much out of my depth.

Cheers,

Linus

 

[cPAdminsMichael]

Hi Linus,

Changing the .htaccess file would also change the behaviour of the official website - unless you do IP/host depending rules - which I think is more complex than just adding the website's URL to a local hosts file

I recommend you to reach out to some of the cPanel System Administration companies out there.
They are listed here:

System Administration Services

System Administration Services Listings Have No Affiliation to cPanel What is SafeAdmin Accreditation? SafeAdmin Certified Service Providers have ensured that a minimum of 90% of their support technicians have successfully completed a...

forums.cpanel.net

- As big surprise ... I'm one of them...

 

[cPanelLauren]

How many IP's do you have on the server? Does this site have a dedicated IP address? That 404 page is a custom 404 but I can tell you definitively that you absolutely will NOT be able to view a site via just the IP address if you have one IP on the server or the site does not have its own dedicated IP address.

 

[ThomasA]

Which IP are you using right now to access any block websites? I have tried different ones like ZenMate or HMA. Both of them are good enough and helped me to unlock blocked websites.

 

[RadWebHosting]

The simplest solution, which was already mentioned by @cPAdminsMichael is to modify the host file of your local computer. This process is quite simple, but for those who are not familiar with the process, here is a guide to walk through step-by-step:
Modifying Hosts File in Windows PC
Modify Hosts File in Mac OSX

 

[Aima7910]

Hi @RadWebHosting, Thanks for the step by step solution. It help me alot..,