Pre-requisites:
Root or sudo privileges
Access to a terminal or command line
By modifying the hosts file you can easily preview your website on the local network during the migration of your website to a new server enabling you to establish a staging environment without impacting existing DNS records.
To edit your Mac's host file for testing a LAMP stack,
Press the command and spacebar key to open Terminal by searching it via the spotlight search
Next, open the hosts file with your preferred editor program.
sudo vi /etc/hosts
Edit the hosts file
Type L in vi to move to the bottom of the screen
Type $ to move to the end of the line
Type i to enter insert mode
Use the following syntax at the bottom of the file
IP_Address domain.com
Once you are done editing the hosts file, type the following to save and quit the file
:wq
To flush your Mac's DNS cache, type the following command
For macOS Monterey,
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
The changes should take effect immediately.
Remember, you should remove the new lines from the hosts file once propagation is done after connecting your domain to web hosting.