Working Remotely to Build a Site

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Introduction

During the build phase, new WordPress sites are set up so they are not discoverable by the off-campus world. This reduces the confusion of having two live sites at once, but it makes it harder to complete your build or share your progress with remote co-workers

If you are working from home and not connected to KNET via VPN, you will need to edit your Hosts File to help your computer “find” your site. Select your respective system type to edit your Hosts File.

Note: You will only have to edit the Hosts file once, but once on each device that you plan on using to edit or view the site.

Windows

  1. Open Notepad
  2. In Notepad, select File > Open in the top menu
  3. Paste C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts into the Filename field at the bottom of the popup and click Open.
  4. Add the entries for the sites you want to get to by going to the bottom of the file and entering:
    146.113.33.20 yoursite.kzoo.edu

    for example:
    146.113.33.20 arcus.kzoo.edu
  5. Save the file by selecting File > Save in the top menu. At the bottom of the Save popup, change Save as Type from “Text Documents (.txt)” to “All Files”. Note: if you skip this step, Windows will automatically add a .txt file extension, if it does, you can either try again or follow the steps to remove a file extension. Highlight “hosts” in the list of files that appear and click save, yes to replace.

Now you can enter your website login address into your browser and start editing your site!

MacOS

Edit Hosts File

  1. Open the Terminal application (located in the Utilities folder)
    If you cannot find the utilities folder, you can go to your Launch pad then Utilities or “other”
  2. Open the hosts file by typing the following command in the terminal: sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
  3. This will open a text editor program.
    Please note: You will now have to use the arrow keys to navigate this interface.
  4. With your arrow keys, arrow down to the bottom and add the following line:
    146.113.33.20 yoursite.kzoo.edu
    Note: replace yoursite with your own subdomain. e.g. 146.113.33.20 arcus.kzoo.edu
  5. Press CTRL+O to write them, and then CTRL+X to exit.

For images to help you along this process please see the How to Edit Hosts File on Mac from Kinsta

Clearing the DNS Cache

You may want to clear the cache before exiting the Terminal. Do so by:

  1. Entering the command -sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

Linux

  • Locate your Hosts file
    • Linux – /etc/hosts
  • Open it for editing as an administrator
  • add to the bottom of the file, replacing yoursite with your own subdomain:
    146.113.33.20 yoursite.kzoo.edu
    e.g. 146.113.33.20 arcus.kzoo.edu

We understand this is not intuitive for most! Please contact Web Services and we’d be happy to walk you through the steps (remotely, of course!)