I have set up a new droplet on Ubuntu 20.04 (LTS) x64 and have successfully installed the nginx mysql php lemp stack. Got two websites working on it and I have cloned the git repo for another ready to go live. I would like to test this one to make sure all is working ok before I update the nameservers. Is it possible to preview it in a browser somehow without changing the default site settings. To be honest I tried changing that and browsed to the IP of the droplet and it didn’t work. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
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Accepted Answer
Hello, @lukep11a
You can simply edit the hosts file locally on your PC and server the website content from the DigitalOcean droplet.
The location of the file on Window / MacOs are:
- Windows PC c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts
- Mac OSX /private/etc/hosts
You can open the file in any text editor like Wordpad, Notepad and add the following line in the file:
DropletIP domain.com www.domain.com
On Windows, you need to run Wordpad or Notepad with administrator permissions (right-click -> run as administrator).
On MAC the best way to edit it is using terminal and typing “sudo nano /etc/hosts”, then adding the line and pressing Ctrl+X.
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