Emulate DNS Locally with the Hosts File Trick

Last updated on May 21st, 2021

Did you know you can test your site on WP Engine after migrating without changing your DNS, just by editing a file on your computer?

When you visit a website your computer saves the server IP address of the domain in the “hosts file”. This speeds up the connection time the next time you request the website from that computer, because it already knows where to look.

By modifying this file, you can trick your local computer into thinking that a domain lives at a different IP address than is actually configured with the DNS host. Best of all, the change is local to your machine only. Meaning no one sees the change but you, and it can be reverted just as easily once you’re done testing.

Table of Contents

1. Locate WP Engine IP

2. Edit Hosts File

2.1. Windows Documentation

2.2. Mac OS X Documentation

Locate WP Engine IP

In order to point your domain to WP Engine on your local machine, you will need to know your WP Engine IP address. To find your IP address:

Log in to the User Portal
Select the environment name
Click Domains
The IP address is the number string labelled A Record

Edit Hosts File

You will edit the hosts file so that your domain name directly corresponds to your WP Engine IP on the same line. You will add a new line to the local hosts section of your host file with the format of: ipaddress domain.com

For example, if:

Your IP is 123.456.78.90

Your domain is mycooldomain.com

Then you will add the following line to the hosts file:

123.456.78.90 mycooldomain.com

The steps to editing the hosts file will vary depending on whether you run a PC or a Mac, and also on the version of your operating system. Because of the variations and since there is already good documentation on how to edit the hosts file, we’ve compiled a set of external resources, one of which will fit your particular operating system.

Windows operating systems
Mac operating systems

Windows Documentation

We suggested using this comprehensive, external guide if you’re connecting from a Windows machine: Beginner Geek “How To Edit Your Hosts File”

There is also a great video guide of the steps here:

Mac OS X Documentation

We suggested using this comprehensive, external guide if you’re connecting from a Mac machine: How to edit the hosts file in Mac OS X

There is also a great video guide of the steps here:

NOTE: On a Mac, there are two helpful tools for editing your hosts file called iHosts and Gas Mask. These applications help you easily manage multiple hosts file entries and edit without entering Terminal or using command line.

Flush DNS

Last, you will need to flush the DNS cache on your machine so it knows to read the new entries in your hosts file instead of the old, saved entries. On many devices restarting will clear this cache, however to ensure the changes are being observed, we recommend following the steps to manually flush your DNS cache.

Steps to flush DNS will vary based on the Operating System of your computer. We have included videos of each below.

Windows 10

Windows 8

Mac OSX

Relaunch Browser

In order for the hosts file settings to take effect, please restart your web browser completely. You can now access your website hosted by WP Engine using the domain name as normal in your browser.

To revert the changes, simply delete the line added to your host file, or comment it out. Then flush DNS and restart your browser.

NEXT STEP: Going live with a domain on WP Engine