Accessing full website offline

[ian]

I'm considering taking down one of my websites soon, which is currently set up on cpanel and uses a very particular version of php and others; plus a populated database.

I will still need access to the website back-end and database though. Can anyone suggest a simple solution for accessing offline on my Windows 10 PC?

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Could install WAMP/XAMPP and run it on localhost. I believe both of them offer options for installing different versions of PHP/MYSQL etc.

 

[JMI]

Sounds like you could do with using a VM. You can then clone it and fiddle then destroy to your hearts content. Virtualbox.org is free.

 

[boxfish]

You could leave the website where it is, point the domain nameservers elsewhere, but then edit yours HOSTS file so the domain still resolves to the site from your machine.

(This is if you don't need the domain for anything else)

 

[Ben Thomas]

Just install a WAMP stack and run it locally, deny it access to the net.

 

[Edwin]

If the fundamental issue is that you don't want the site "live" for anyone to see, but you could get away with having it online, then you could lock access to it through .htaccess so that a password is needed to see anything at all, and leave it where it is. That might be the simplest solution. And of course if the place you're hosting it has multiple tiers of hosting packages, you could drop down to the smallest/cheapest that still provides what you need, since the only traffic to the site will be YOU!

 

[ian]

Thanks all, I still need the domain to carry a 'closed' page, but wanted to access offline so I can cancel the existing expensive hosting. Sounds like a VM or one of the off-shelf solutions is the way to go.