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  1. #1
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    Test local hosting before commercial host

    Hi,

    I have already bought a domain name and I would like to test how my website looks like before hosting it at a host company.
    So could somebody please tell me how can I host easily my website (on my machine) to check how it will appears on the web?


    Thank very in advance

  2. #2
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    Most hosting companies will provide you with a temporary URL where you can upload your files and view your website, before actually changing the nameservers to point your domain to their servers. This is used mostly by people who are migrating their website(s), as it lets them test the waters before jumping in.

  3. #3
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    The temporary URL should be:
    http://serverIP/~username
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  4. #4
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    Thanks for your replies.
    I would like to test it myself before test it with the host company.

    Any help would be appreciated.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by kimog View Post
    Thanks for your replies.
    I would like to test it myself before test it with the host company.

    Any help would be appreciated.
    Do you have the website's files (HTML)? If so.. Just double click them and view them on your browser.. Any particular reason you do not want to use the TEMP URL provided by your host?

    Other than that, you would need to have a home server and host your website yourself in order to view it live.
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  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by HostLeet View Post
    Do you have the website's files (HTML)? If so.. Just double click them and view them on your browser.. Any particular reason you do not want to use the TEMP URL provided by your host?

    Other than that, you would need to have a home server and host your website yourself in order to view it live.
    Thanks HostLeet.
    I have already installed WAMP server and have wordpress template.
    Now I just need to know how to set my site on the web from my machine and see it as w3.mywebsite.com?

  7. #7
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    Cant you afford to pay for a monthly hosting plan? Its not so much money and you can have real tests.
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  8. #8
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    Thanks Dr. Michael.
    Well, it depends on how much it does cost. If it is affordable, why not.
    In fact, my website is for academic purposes not for pure business purposes.
    Even though, I may pay to get it hosted, but I would prefer to test it myself and then host a "final" product rather than a "beta-test hosting".
    Otherwise, I will look like as a fish eater, not as a learner to fish!
    I know, it should be a very simple approach but as I am newbie, I don't know how to do it yet! I have to learn, read, ask questions...etc. I will get it after a while...
    It is only a question of time.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by kimog View Post
    Well, it depends on how much it does cost. If it is affordable, why not.
    Most hosts charge only $1 up to $5 per month. So one month testing on real environment is not too much.
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  10. #10
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    You won't be able to access your local site from another machie on the inerenet unless you enter port routing on your local router. I'm guessing you are doing this from home so this would mean forwarding port 80 from your home router to the IP address of your local machine.

    Really all you need to do is open a web browser on your local machine and type in http://localhost and possibly the port that your WAMP installation is running on like http://localhost:8080 this should load your webpage.
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by energizedit View Post
    You won't be able to access your local site from another machie on the inerenet unless you enter port routing on your local router. I'm guessing you are doing this from home so this would mean forwarding port 80 from your home router to the IP address of your local machine.

    Really all you need to do is open a web browser on your local machine and type in http://localhost and possibly the port that your WAMP installation is running on like http://localhost:8080 this should load your webpage.
    Thank you energizedit.
    Yes I am trying to do it from home and local machine.
    I have my page by 'localhost' in the address bar and I would like to test and see how it displays as it should on the web with the domain name I created.
    I think it is an IP and port configurations.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr_Michael View Post
    Most hosts charge only $1 up to $5 per month. So one month testing on real environment is not too much.
    Is this just for testing or it includes a true hosting too?
    Does that mean you personally (your company) propose such services ?
    At any rate, even if I get tested by someone else, I would like to test and practice it myself too.
    Again, I have to learn how to fish not only to eat fish!
    Last edited by Kimog; 02-08-2012 at 12:07 PM.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by kimog View Post
    Is this just for testing or it includes a true hosting too?
    As I said before, almost all hosts out there, have a small REAL hosting plan for only $1 up to $4 or $5 per month.

    Does that mean you personally (your company) propose such services ?
    No I am not talking about my company.
    You can find lot of offers on this forum on the relative section.

    At any rate, even if I get tested by someone else, I would like to test and practice it myself too.
    Again, I have to learn how to fish not only to eat fish!
    You will do the tests. Host provides you with the web space and all the tools. You will have to design your site and upload it on your host.
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  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by kimog View Post
    Thank you energizedit.
    Yes I am trying to do it from home and local machine.
    I have my page by 'localhost' in the address bar and I would like to test and see how it displays as it should on the web with the domain name I created.
    I think it is an IP and port configurations.
    You can spoof the address on you local computer to be able to test this. All you do in windows is edit c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts then append the line that starts 127.0.0.1 with...

    e.g.

    127.0.0.1 localhost www.testsite.com

    Save the file.

    This tells your pc to use the local loopback address i.e. localhost when trying to access your URL.

    This can also be achieved much the same in linux by editing /etc/hosts in exactly the same way.
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  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by HostXNow View Post
    You can spoof the address on you local computer to be able to test this. All you do in windows is edit c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts then append the line that starts 127.0.0.1 with...

    e.g.

    127.0.0.1 localhost www.testsite.com

    Save the file.

    This tells your pc to use the local loopback address i.e. localhost when trying to access your URL.

    This can also be achieved much the same in linux by editing /etc/hosts in exactly the same way.
    Thank you HostXNow,
    It didn't work! I have four lines starting with "127.0.0.1 localhost"
    When I changed the first line or the four lines all, I had the following error message:

    HTTP Error 404.3 - Not Found
    The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by kimog View Post
    Thank you HostXNow,
    It didn't work! I have four lines starting with "127.0.0.1 localhost"
    When I changed the first line or the four lines all, I had the following error message:

    HTTP Error 404.3 - Not Found
    The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.
    That is probably because of the rewrite rules. Are you using a CMS or something like that? Be sure to enable the mod_rewrite ext in XAMPP.

    Edit: if your domain is e.g thisismydomain.com

    You should just have one line in the file like

    127.0.0.1 localhost www.thisismydomain.com

    There shouldn't be multiple lines.
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  17. #17
    One way would be to sing-up with a trial server at a good hosting company after the trial is up say 15 days and your site is ok and running the way you want it then you could upgrade to a hosting package that fits your needs

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by HostXNow View Post
    That is probably because of the rewrite rules. Are you using a CMS or something like that? Be sure to enable the mod_rewrite ext in XAMPP.

    Edit: if your domain is e.g thisismydomain.com

    You should just have one line in the file like

    127.0.0.1 localhost www.thisismydomain.com

    There shouldn't be multiple lines.
    Actually, I didn't host my website yet.
    I only installed XAMPP and WAMP to give them a try but I uninstalled them after that.
    This is maybe why there are more than one line starting with 127.0.01, though I uninstalled them, so normally their files should be deleted.
    I don't have "www.thisismywebsite.comm" after 127.0.0.0!
    How to get it there? I have "localhost" instead! Ho to replace it by the name of my domain?
    Manually it didn't work!


    I would like to use IIS (internet information services) with PHP and MySQL installed independently instead of a WAMP or XAMPP package.
    But I have troubles! I don't know how install my open source with IIS!

  19. #19
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    If you can't pay then check out http://freewebhostingtalk.com. You can find real hosting setups for free there.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by kimog View Post
    Actually, I didn't host my website yet.
    I only installed XAMPP and WAMP to give them a try but I uninstalled them after that.
    This is maybe why there are more than one line starting with 127.0.01, though I uninstalled them, so normally their files should be deleted.
    I don't have "www.thisismywebsite.comm" after 127.0.0.0!
    How to get it there? I have "localhost" instead! Ho to replace it by the name of my domain?
    Manually it didn't work!

    Default is

    # Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
    #
    # This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
    #
    # This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
    # entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
    # be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
    # The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
    # space.
    #
    # Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
    # lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
    #
    # For example:
    #
    # 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
    # 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

    127.0.0.1 localhost
    replace with

    # Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
    #
    # This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
    #
    # This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
    # entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
    # be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
    # The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
    # space.
    #
    # Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
    # lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
    #
    # For example:
    #
    # 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
    # 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

    127.0.0.1 localhost www.yourdomain.com
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  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by jcarney1987 View Post
    If you can't pay then check out http://freewebhostingtalk.com. You can find real hosting setups for free there.
    Thank you jcarney. It is not a hosting problem for now installing!
    When I could install and use IIS, I may test on the link you gave.
    Thanks

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by HostXNow View Post
    Default is
    replace with
    Thanks.
    This is what I did, and here is what I have:

    # Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
    #
    # This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
    #
    # This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
    # entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
    # be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
    # The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
    # space.
    #
    # Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
    # lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
    #
    # For example:
    #
    # 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
    # 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

    # localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
    # 127.0.0.1 localhost
    # ::1 localhost

    127.0.0.1 localhost www.mytestdomain.com

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Posts
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    i have setup xampp (xampp-win32-1.7.4-VC6-installer)
    and setup this but i cannot understand how it work.
    when i browse html pages then it work, file:///C:/xampp/htdocs/index.html
    but when i am using php pages then not worked, its called for save as file in desktop....


    please help me

  24. #24
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    i have fix this problem,

    but tell me how to create database and user from phpmyadmin

  25. #25
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    phpMyAdmin is really easy to figure out. Just play a bit around with it. As noted by others, hosts are really cheap. You can get hosts from like $1/mo. to $10/mo. for shared hosting.

    I wouldn't bother with localhost - I would just purhcase a webhosting account and use that.

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