https://example.com.customers.tigertech.net/

However, customers occasionally need to test the site on our servers using the real “www.example.com” hostname, as if the nameservers had already been updated. For example, this is the only way to test an SSL certificate. It’s also needed if your site uses scripts that check the hostname and only work when accessed as https://www.example.com/, and not when accessed as https://example.com.customers.tigertech.net/.

It’s possible to access the site on our servers if you temporarily modify your own computer's “hosts” file. Doing so will force your computer to connect to our servers for that hostname, even though the rest of the world will still connect to the correct public server.

Finding the right IP address

You first need to know the current IP address of your site on our servers.

You can use tools like “nslookup” to look up the current IP address of your site with us, such as “example.com.customers.tigertech.net”. You'll end up knowing something like “For now, example.com and www.example.com are on IP address 192.0.2.17 with Tiger Technologies”.

Once you know the IP address, you can use the “Editing the hosts file” instructions below to force your computer to use that IP address for your site.

You can then visit http://www.example.com/ in a browser on your computer to test the site using the real hostname. Note that if your site requires SSL, but our servers have not yet been able to obtain an SSL certificate for the site, you may have to click past browser warnings saying that the certificate is invalid.

Editing the hosts file

Editing your computer’s hosts file makes all software on your computer connect to our servers for certain hostnames.

Keep these warnings in mind, though:

• You should only edit the “hosts” file if you understand how it works and what you are doing. Entering incorrect values can cause unexpected results.
• The file must be named “hosts” with no file extension (in particular, it must not be named “hosts.txt”).
• You must remove your changes when you’ve finished testing. This is particularly important because the IP address of your site may change on our servers without any advance notice. If your computer continues to use the old IP address manually listed in the “hosts” file, you will not be able to reach your own website, even though everyone else can.

To make this change, you’ll need to add a line like this to your “hosts” file:

192.0.2.17 example.com www.example.com

The sections below explain how to do this:

• Windows 10
• Windows 8
• Windows 7 or Windows Vista
• Windows XP or earlier
• Mac OS X
• Linux

Windows 10

1. Click the Windows Start menu.
2. Type Notepad but do not press enter.
3. Right-click the “Notepad” application it found and choose Run as administrator.
4. Open the following file (you can copy-and-paste this text into the “File name” space of the open box): %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
5. Add the new line to the bottom of the “hosts” file.
6. Save the file and close Notepad.

Windows 8

1. Go to the Windows Start screen.
2. Type Notepad but do not press enter.
3. Right-click the “Notepad” application it found and choose Run as administrator.
4. Open the following file (you can copy-and-paste this text into the “File Name” space of the open box): %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
5. Add the new line to the bottom of the “hosts” file.
6. Save the file and close Notepad.

Windows 7 or Windows Vista

1. Click the Windows Start button.
2. Type Notepad but do not press enter.
3. Right-click the “Notepad” application it found and choose Run as administrator.
4. Open the following file (you can copy-and-paste this text into the “File name” space of the open box): %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
5. Add the new line to the bottom of the “hosts” file.
6. Save the file and close Notepad.

Windows XP or earlier

1. Click the Windows Start button.
2. Choose Run.
3. Type the following into the "Open" field of the window that pops up, then press Enter:

   notepad %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

4. Add the new line to the bottom of the “hosts” file.
5. Save the file and close Notepad.

Mac OS X

1. Close any Web browser.
2. Open the Terminal by choosing Applications — Utilities — Terminal.
3. Enter this command to begin editing the hosts file (enter a password if prompted):

   sudo nano /etc/hosts

4. Edit the “hosts” file, adding the new line to the bottom of the file.
5. Save the file by pressing Control-o and confirm the file name.
6. Press Control-x to exit the editor.
7. Close the Terminal window.

Linux

Simply edit /etc/hosts with your favorite text editor as root. You do not need to do anything to flush the DNS cache, although you may need to restart all running instances of your Web browser (particularly Chrome).