Our client currently has a website on their own domain: we are in the process of setting up their new site on a new server, with the same domain name.
Originally we started work on a subdomain that they could access when need be. As time came closer we pushed the work to the actual domain (on the new server) and continued to make changes (by adding a line to our hosts file to ensure we were looking at the new server).
The client wants to see the site as it stands today, before switching the DNS to point to the new server. While we could copy everything back to the original subdomain that is not as easy as we first hoped, as unfortunately there’s a few too many links and references to files using the domain name (as opposed to just using relative paths).
One other thing: the code auto-redirects back to the ‘proper’ domain if it’s not currently being used (it’s a Magento install) and this stops the possibility of pointing the subdomain document root to the current directory (as the first thing that will happen is that it will see that we’re using the subdomain, and will push the client to the original domain).
What are our options? I know that we could get them to change their hosts file, but I’m hoping for something a little less ‘techy’ for the client.
Is there any proxy server out there that we can use, specifically using our own DNS settings, maybe, or is there some Windows client side application that they could install to make it a bit simpler?
It would be pretty darn simple to write a program — in pretty much any language — which would change the hosts file for your clients. All they’d need to do is run the program.
Alternately (this is more work, and not necessarily any more benefit) you could set up a DNS server on the subnet, and configure the web server to use that DNS server. I really don’t see this being any easier than just (somehow) modifying the hosts file, though.