Knowledge Base Article

How to use the 'hosts' file?

The hosts file is used to map hostnames to IP addresses. With the hosts file you can change the IP to which you resolve a certain domain name.

 

This is particularly useful when you wish to see how a website will look when hosted on a different server without having to wait for a DNS change to propagate, or avoiding any DNS changes at all.

 

The path to the hosts file, depending on the operating system you are using, is:

  • Windows - %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (by default the system root is c:\windows, so if you are using Windows, your hosts file is most probably c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts)
  • Linux - /etc/hosts
  • Mac OS X - /private/etc/hosts

Now let's say that you wish to resolve your domain domain.com to IP 1.2.3.4. In this case the entry you should add to your hosts file would be:

 

1.2.3.4 domain.com www.domain.com

 

You may need to clear your cache before you can properly resolve the domain to the new IP.



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