Access site prior to DNS update?

[dawilson]

I'm porting a WordPress site from another hosting provider and am keen to make sure that it's up and running before updating its DNS settings. I can't for the life of me remember what the URL format is to allow me to access a TCH site in this case, though. Can anyone help me out? I've tried http://<user>:<password>@<server IP>, http://<server IP>/home/<user>, and a bunch of other options with no luck so far.

[TCH-Kris]

Hi,

You can preview your WordPress site on TCH before updating the DNS by using the following format:

https://servername/~username

Just replace:

servername with your actual server’s hostname 

username with your cPanel username

Note that if your WordPress site was built using the original domain, you might run into issues when accessing it via the temporary URL. WordPress hardcodes the site URL and home URL in the database, so loading it via /~username may load the site incorrectly. 

[dawilson]

I should have thought of that pretty obvious option. Thanks! Hopefully I'll be able to get some idea of whether the ported site is working before I switch the DNS and break everything 🙂