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Test site on vps (with directadmin) before dns is changed

Hi,

I have a vps (with directadmin) on which I host several domains. Now i need to move somebodies active website from another hosting provider to my vps.

But before i change the dns, i would like to already copy the ftp and database and test the site on my vps. If all works well, i'll later only have to change the dns.
Is this possible, if yes, how?

Thanks!

skullnobrains

Easy. Test using the ip directly.

If you use named based virtual hosts on the vps, either use modify headers ff extension and change the HOST header to your site name or change your hosts table

peps03

ASKER

Thanks for your reply skullnobrains!

There are multiple sites that use the same ip of the vps.

I think i use named based virtual hosts, but i'm not sure.

How do i do either of these:
"Either use modify headers ff extension and change the HOST header to your site name" or "change your hosts table"

Thanks a lot!

SOLUTION

skullnobrains

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peps03

ASKER

@skullnobrains, thanks for your explanation.

The first 3 of 4 steps were no problem. I got the "Apache is functioning normally" message.

I can't figure out what to do in the forth step:
"change the HOST header to the name of the virtual host you want to test using modify headers and reload the page"

- Where do i: "change the HOST header"?
- What should be the: "name of the virtual host you want to test"? Do i enter a vps username somewhere or the domain name i want to test?
- How do i use "modify headers"?

Thanks!!

peps03

ASKER

Anyone?

How do i use firefox + modify header to access a user's site on my vps while the domain name is not transferred yet. (see above questions)

Thanks

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

skullnobrains

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peps03

ASKER

Thanks!! It works great! Just what i needed!

peps03

ASKER

Sorry to bother you again for this.
But, this method doesn't work when installing wordpress.
I goes well, at first, meaning the first part of the wordpress installation.

After the point when it says "Run the install" the site goes broken. The stylesheet disappear, and i cant login into wordpress. (as it redirects to the original domain).

Is there something to do about this?
It would be great to be able to already setup a new site on the vps, and later only change the dns of the domain name.

Thanks.

skullnobrains

this is a problem specific to wordpress : wordpress produces fully qualified URLs for links (or a <base> html tag) using a setting (i think basesurl) in the main config file/screen. this is pretty useless but it is the wordpress way.

i have never tried, but you may be able to use . or ./ as the base URL, but i'm unsure this will not break stuff in wordpress

not many decent solutions appart from changing the setting manually when you publish, or possibly setting up something with mod_sed to change the urls dynamically on your test apache or possibly use an if/else statement in the config file

maybe a reasonably good way would be to use $SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] in the config file but this will only work if you install wordpress at the site root or in the same subfolder on both machines

peps03

ASKER

Thanks a lot! I'll try this. Makes sense, i've had trouble with wordpress and its urls before.

Great!