What if you want to test your magento installed on your hosting account even if the domain isn’t registered ? Yes, it is possible with our magento hosting plans.
You can point the website to server IP by making changes in hosts file on your local machine. Refer the post use hosts file. Alternatively, you can make few changes in the database which will allow you to use your magento installation on temporary URL.
Login to your control panel & access phpMyadmin. Select the database and look for table core_config_data.
Edit the fields below. Replace domain name with temporary URL depending on control panel you use.
web/unsecure/base_url
web/secure/base_url
It’s time to remove the cache which has been built up. Delete all content under “var/cache“. It is available under magento installed directory.
You will be able to use magento installation on temporary URL now.
Even after making the changes, you will see that magento front page works. But when clicked on other URL’s it shows a 404 error. It is because the rewrite do not work with temporary URL with the tilde (~). Here is what you can use. Browse the URL as below.
http://server-IP/~username/index.php/customer-service
Other alternative is to disable rewrite rules from the Magento admin panel. Login to your Magento admin panel & access option Admin >> System >> Configuration. Under General Section Tab access Web >> Search Engines Optimization. From the drop-down select No and Save the configuration.
If you face any issues with magento installation OR it’s functionality, contact our support team. They will be happy to help.