How to Access Website without Domain Name Assigned

Usually most of us need to transfer a running website from one server to another server . During transfer we have to check whether the website is working on new server or not before updating DNS . In this below tutorial we will guide you how to transfer website from one to another server without any interruption .
Generally the website can be accessed by typing

on the server's cpanel without Domain name Server ( DNS ) pointing . But in some hosting provider disable this feature due to security reasons . Thus 'mod_userdir' is disabled and you can't enable it on your shared hosting . However , we have an alternate method to test our new server .
In our computer's Hosts file . Here we have to may hostnames to the IP address . It allow you to work on new server with the domain name . But for other users , it will load from old server.
To access website without domain name assigned using Server IP address ,follow below steps .

1) Open the “hosts” file in a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad

'hosts' file location are different in different OS as mentioned below .

• Windows: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
• Linux or Ubuntu: /etc/hosts
• Mac OS X: /private/etc/hosts

2) Append below line at the bottom of the 'hosts' file

Note :
- You can find server IP from your email sent by hosting provider at the time of purchase . You can also find it from cpanel . - Replace 'IP_address' with your server's IP address
- Replace 'yourdomain.com' with your actual domain name
In this way the particular IP will override the actual domain name DNS . So, you will be able to access your new website from new server on your local PC . After checking everything is working fine on new server , you can finally update DNS record to point your domain to new server . This techniques doesn't affect your website performance when migrating from one server to another .