Is it possible to create new websites on ISPConfig, then browse website via the webserver external ip address? Or can ISPConfig now handle temporary URLS?
So you want to access a website before it is in name service? That works this way: https://www.faqforge.com/linux/cont...ess-a-namebased-website-without-a-dns-record/ Using IP-address in the URL does now work, the websites ISPConfig creates are name based so the website name must be in the URL.
ISPConfig can do that for many years already, but it makes not much sense to do that, at least when you run a cms in a site and not just some static files. The recommended way and only way to test a website reliably is to do what @Taleman suggested.
ah yes, that is so i can do it locally from windows, however, i am more interested in being able to provide webhosting clients using wordpress with the ability to install and test their wordpress website on a temporary url (perhaps an alias?) prior to changing dns from an old webserver to a new one with a new ip address. The idea would be that said person changes their registry TTL to something like 300 a day or so before...and whilst waiting for the old TTL to expire and renew they can be experimenting with the wordpress website after it has been moved...but before it goes live.
the best option is still to change the local hosts file. on their pc, and on the new hosting webserver (just to make sure it doesn't pull anything in from the old live site), they just need to remember to comment out the change in their local hosts file whenever they need to access the old live site. whilst using a temp url / alias may be easier for a non-technical client when testing. and *should* be simple to change when going live, that isn't always the case. i know of several wordpress plugins that hardcode the url into file's, and in various places in the database, so it's not always just a case of changing the site url and home url. something will virtually always get missed and then break when made live.
Editing hosts file is not trivial, and clumsy user may break something or forget to remove the edit when the info would be found in DNS. But there is this Wikipedia article that at least shows where that hosts file is to be found on the users workstation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)#Location_in_the_file_system
Like I mentioned above and @nhybgtvfr mentioned it too, especially for WordPress sites a temporary URL makes not much sense as Wordpress and plugins save that URL, so when you go live later, the site will not work on the live domain unless you changed the domain name in WordPress wherever it occurs.
