site preview options

[thingwarbler]

Stephen mentions in a thread that the best option for previewing a site before going live is to assign it to a static IP and then moving it back to the general IP pool once it checks out.

WinVPS accounts come with 3 IP addresses and two of these are used for the box to act as a name server and the last one is the IP that's shared between the sites hosted on the server. So, before I mess things up too much, I'm trying to figure out if a) it's okay to use the IPs that are assigned to the NS for site testing, or b) I need to beg for/buy an additional IP address for the box.

Or, is the PLESK site preview function that was in beta testing back in August up and running now?

 

[Stephen]

yes you can assign a nameserver IP without issue. The site preview is working in 7.6.1 version of plesk now.

 

[thingwarbler]

Stephen,

Thx -- but the preview option still appears to be busted, at least in my install of PLESK. I get a 404 error when I try to preview any domain on the server.

According to this thread over at swsoft, others are having the same problem, too, and have only resolved it by reinstalling PLESK. FWIW, this doesn't work; the only other option that's mentioned is this, where they recommend:
---
Another solution to reconfigure IIS websites to Plesk websites:

1. Set registry parameter HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PLESK\PSA Config\Config\IIsConfigured = 0

2. Run websrvmng --install

3. Run websrvmng --reconfigure-all
---
I really dont' want to mess with the server like that if I can avoid it. Any thoughts on a workaround that avoids that nasty scenario of reinstalling?

 

[thingwarbler]

While the hardworking jodohost'ers are busy giving CPR to various VPS servers, I'll offer some feedback on my own question. So, FWIW:

Until the preview function in PLESK actually, you know, starts working, the easiest fix is probably to hack the hosts file on your workstation to point the domain name to your server's IP.

I'm moving a handful of Joomla sites to my jodohost VPS box, and it's imperative that I be able to fire up a site to fully configure it before it goes live via the DNS. the hosts file hack will allow you to run the configuration scripts and manage the site correctly -- probably even better than PLESK's preview function.