linusmorris

Registered
Jul 24, 2020
2
0
1
United Kingdom
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Reseller Owner
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
 
Last edited by a moderator:

cPAdminsMichael

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2016
192
74
153
Denmark
cPanel Access Level
Root Administrator
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

Registered
Jul 24, 2020
2
0
1
United Kingdom
cPanel Access Level
Reseller Owner
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
 
Last edited by a moderator:

cPAdminsMichael

Well-Known Member
Dec 19, 2016
192
74
153
Denmark
cPanel Access Level
Root Administrator
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:

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

cPanelLauren

Product Owner II
Staff member
Nov 14, 2017
13,266
1,304
363
Houston
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

Member
Jul 20, 2020
8
0
1
Bangladesh
cPanel Access Level
Website Owner
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

Well-Known Member
May 6, 2016
63
14
58
Dallas, Texas
cPanel Access Level
DataCenter Provider
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