DNS Hosts file

Problem: You have a site that you need to test without switching your DNS…

Solution 1: Point a subdomain to your account using an “A” record

Use an A-record to point to Planet Argon

Solution 2: hosts file hacking!

Alternative Solution: PLANET ARGON DNS alias

Basically, you trick your local machine into thinking that yourdomain.com is pointing to our server (by ip)

The format of the hosts file looks like this:

192.168.1.1   yourdomain.com

Replace 192.168.1.1 with the IP address of the server your site is being hosted on.

Instructions

Linux and OSX

In OSX or Linux this change goes into /etc/hosts

On OSX run

lookupd -flushcache

after updating the hosts file to make sure that OSX uses the contents of that file when performing lookups.

Windows

The file is probably located at

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

And you will probably need to reboot after editing it. With windows Vista you will most likely need to open the text editor in a special administrative mode.