Methods for testing domains which arent registered yet?

Question

The title describes what I'm trying to achieve I guess - I've got a Plesk powered server, but no domains as yet, but I need to test out the various website I've created.

Rather, I've got ONE testing domain which i've pointed to the server just to enable a client to have a look, but I don't really want to have to register 10 domains just to test stuff - i'd like to find a clever way around it which will enable me to show clients stuff on all the 10 websites without them having to edit their host file.

I've set up domain1.co.uk on my Plesk control panel, and we've pointed http://www.mytestdomain.co.uk/ at it, to enable us to test the website before we launch "live" to the web in general.

Once we dump mytestdomain.co.uk and replace it with the "live" domain myREALdomain.co.uk how can I add further domains to the server and test them in a similar fashion?

domain1.co.uk will be on xx.xx.77.253, so I don't understand how If I have 2-3 other domains on the server, how we can set up the DNS A records of our domain name to point to all the different websites - surely it's done by unique IP? Or does it look at who's asking and then point them to the right place?

Additionally - Is there a better way of testing out websites before releasing them into the wild? In plesk, if I create all the domains I'm set to launch, could I create a bunch of subdomains on domain1.co.uk and point the subdomains at my "real" domains as testing locations?

There aint enough words to describe this properly - hope someone get the idea :P

Thanks, Hugh

Answer 1

I'm not sure I understand the question completely, but I think you've answered it pretty much yourself.

The way to do this without registering test domains is by putting these on subdomains. It's been a while since I've used Plesk, but you should either be able to add a "subdomain" as a domain and keep files in a separate account, or just use the domain interface to add subdomains. Since each subdomain keeps its files in separate directories, you can place a site in each one.

So, for example you would have site1.testdomain.co.uk, site2.testdomain.co.uk, etc.

What I do myself while developing sites, is create a subdomain where I place all content. For example, demo.mydomain.com/client1, client2, etc. Depending on the size of the project and how hostname-conscious it is, I could see putting each one on a subdomain (or registering 'test' domains), but only in rare situations.

Plesk should handle the DNS records, but if you need to you can create A records to point at the right IP address. Plesk should handle setting up the VirtualHost directive for you.

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EDIT:

To do this, set up the site on the domain, even though it does not resolve yet.

Add your 'testdomain.co.uk' on as an alias of the domain, this way it will serve up the same content as 'realdomain.co.uk'. Once testing is done and site is moved over, remove 'testdomain.co.uk'.