As a website developer, you may need to work on a domain name hosted at different IP addresses. Staging websites at different hosting locations have many benefits, such as testing a website before running updates, comparing the performance of different hosting providers, or maintaining a ready backup of your website at a different location (in case your primary web hosting server fails). Use a PC for web design? Try "Hostsman" instead: http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman +++ Original article by Jim Walker, The Hack Repair Guy

1. How to install Gas Mask
for Mac OS
Gas Mask is a simple hosts file manager for Mac OS
Article written by Jim Walker, @HackRepair

2. How to install Gas Mask for Mac OS
> Why?
 As a website developer, you may need to work on a domain
name hosted at different IP addresses.
 Staging websites at different hosting locations has many
benefits, such as testing a website before running updates,
comparing the performance of different hosting providers, or
maintaining a ready backup of your website at a different
location (in case your primary web hosting server fails).

3. How to install Gas Mask for Mac OS
> What is an IP Address?
 Every domain name has an associated IP address. An IP addresses is no
different than a physical street address.
 Your web host assigns your domain to an address in order for your
computer's web browser to view the web site on their server.
 A shared host operates much like an apparent building manager. Thousands
of domain names may share the same address. This is perfectly fine. Today's
web servers are nimble enough to manage hundreds if not thousands of
websites on the same server with the same IP address. Managing address
traffic in this way is the job of your web servers software – and it does this
quite well.

4. How to install Gas Mask for Mac OS
> Gas Mask is a simple hosts file manager
 The "hosts file" is the fancy name for a file on your
computer which allows you to set the IP address of
any website address, or even block website addresses.
 Think of the hosts file as a "text file" firewall on your
computer.

5. How to install Gas Mask for Mac OS
> Installation of Gas Mask takes seconds
(1) Search in Google for: mac gasmask cnet (2) Then click the link.

6. How to install Gas Mask for Mac OS
> Download Gas Mask
(3) Then click the Download Now button.

7. How to install Gas Mask for Mac OS
> Open the Gas Mask application
(4) You should then see the application Gas Mask located in the directory you
downloaded the file into.

8. How to install Gas Mask for Mac OS
> After opening the Gas Mask application
(5) Next, double click on the application and you'll see a screen open that
looks like this:

9. How to install Gas Mask for Mac OS
> Type the IP, Domain, then “Save”
(6) Just place your cursor on any available line and type in the IP address of
the alternate website location, space bar once, then your domain name
like the example above.
(7) Open your web browser, go to your web site address as you normally
do. Voilà!
Your computer will only load the website at the alternate IP address you
saved within Gas Mask.
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Article written by Jim Walker, @HackRepair