Advanced e-commerce resources :: Miva Merchant Hosting :: oscommerce

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DNS Changes

How do I change my hosts file? Or, how can I see my domain before DNS changes propagate?

To see your domain on our system before a DNS change takes effect, either:

1) Edit your hosts file on your PC.

If you are using Windows, use "Start", "Find", "Files and Folders" to find a file in your windows directory (or WINNT\system32\drivers\etc) called "hosts". Verify that the file is not "read only" by right clicking it, and choosing it's Properties. Then open the file for editting with Notepad. There should already be an entry for "localhost". Follow that format when you insert your domain and our IP.

On Windows98 and Windows95, the order may be 'hostname' then 'IP address'. On Windows2000 and WindowsME, the order is 'IP address' then 'hostname'

              127.0.0.1 localhost

              204.11.246.1 www.example.com

Then save this altered hosts file and close notepad. Make sure Windows did not silently save the file as "hosts.sam". The filename has to be "hosts". You may also need to reboot for the change to take effect. Next time you try to go to "www.example.com", your browser will try to find that domain at the corresponding IP instead of looking up the IP through DNS.

Mac OS 9's hosts file format is based on RFC-1035. Mac OS 9 keeps its HOSTS file in the Preferences folder under the System folder. Edit this file and add a line for each host that you would like to map an IP to:

              www.example.com 204.11.246.1

To find the hosts file in OS X's graphical interface:

     1. Open Finder.
     2. In the Go menu, select "Go to Folder"
     3. Type /etc for the folder name.
     4. In the list of files that appears, you should find hosts. Double click it to open it in a text editor.      5. As in the earlier examples, the format of the file is: "204.11.246.1 www.example.com".

If you find that you are unable to edit your hosts file through finder, try this instead:

Launch Terminal.
Type sudo pico /etc/hosts and hit return.
You will be asked for your password. You won't see any characters on the screen when you type the password. Just hit return when it is typed and you should find yourself in a text editor called Pico.
Now use the up-down-left-right arrows to get yourself into position to type the line. You can use the tab between entries on the each line.
When you are finished typing, hit the ctrl-x keys. It will ask if you want to save changes. Type a "y" to indicate yes.
Now you have a hosts file with your new entry.

On unix-based systems, as well as OS X's terminal, you can find the hosts file at /etc/hosts.