When you’re building or migrating a website, you might want to see how your site looks on the new server before changing DNS or finalizing a domain name.

Fortunately, there’s a simple trick using your system’s hosts file — no need to touch DNS settings.

🧠 What Is the Hosts File?

The hosts file is a local file on your computer that maps domain names to IP addresses before DNS does.

When a browser requests a website:

  • It first checks your computer’s hosts file.
  • If a match exists, it uses that IP.
  • If not, it asks the DNS server.

This lets you override the DNS — ideal for testing websites before switching DNS or registering a domain.

🔧 How DNS Normally Works

DNS (Domain Name System) translates names like example.com to IP addresses like 123.123.123.123.

When you buy a domain like mynewdomain.gr, you assign nameservers (e.g., pleskcluster1.webhosting4u.gr) that handle its DNS records.

When a visitor enters your domain in the browser:

  1. The system first checks the hosts file.
  2. If no match is found, it queries the assigned nameserver.
  3. The result is shown in the browser.

Without DNS, we’d need to remember every IP manually — that’s where the hosts file becomes your best friend during testing.

🛠 How to Edit Your Hosts File

📂 File Locations by OS

Operating System Hosts File Location
Windows C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
Linux /etc/hosts
macOS /etc/hosts

✏️ How to Edit

  • On Windows:
    Right-click Notepad → Run as Administrator → Open the file manually.

  • On Linux/macOS:
    Use terminal editors like nano or vi.

🧾 Sample Entry

Add these two lines under 127.0.0.1: