Setting up Mozilla.com to point to Authstage

Sometimes, we want to test the mirror pages before we launch our final content into production. A good way to simulate what users will see once we go into production, yet redirect users to the staging environment, is to edit your host file locally

Location and default content

The following information is taking from Wikipedia:

The host file is located in different locations in different operating systems and even in different Windows versions: [1]

• Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista: %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\ is the default location, which may be changed. The actual directory is determined by the Registry key \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\DataBasePath.
• Windows 95/98/Me: %WinDir%\
• Linux and other Unix-like operating systems: /etc
• Mac OS 9 and earlier: System Folder: Preferences or System folder (format of the file may vary from Windows and Linux counterparts)
• Mac OS X: /private/etc (uses BSD-style Hosts file)
• OS/2 and eComStation: "bootdrive":\mptn\etc\
• Symbian 1st/2nd edition phones: C:\system\data\hosts
• Symbian 3rd edition phones: C:\private\10000882\hosts, only accessible with file browsers with AllFiles capability, most are not. [2]

IP redirection

Edit your hosts file with the following line:

 127.0.0.1          localhost
 63.245.209.68      www.mozilla.com

Confirm security exceptions

• Launch https://www.mozilla.com
• on Firefox 3, a security exception page appears, asking you to confirm and accept the certificate
• Accept it, and verify the page now redirects to https://www.authstage.mozilla.com/en-US

Restore settings

Dont forget to restore your hosts file back to before! Removing the line will work.