Preview and Working on Site before resolving...?

[monkette]

I have a webmaster that wants to give me all his hosting, but he wants to work on his site which involves MySQL databases and preview it, finish it. The current client of his already has an active domain and my guess is he is doing the new site and wants to complete it on my "server" and then when it's approved, point the current registrars DNS servers over to his newly "hosted by me" created site. Is this possible? and easy?

I was just going to give him an extra domain I had laying around to work in, but am slightly confused on how to get his completed site switched over to the new site once it is finished...

He is asking for an i.p. account for him to do so, what should I tell him and how can I help this happen? If I can be clearer, his current site www.site1.com is at another hosting company. He is updating the site to a newer look etcetera and wants to put up a complete site, hosted here by me, with the ability to preview it and then when his boss says (his client), switch the dns servers to my nameservers so the site will just switch. Now I know about having him change the dns servers over to mine, ns1.nativewebhost.com and ns2.nativewebhost.com but how will they resolve to www.site1.com when all his files and work are in www.tempsite.com on my "virtual server" ? Okay, thanks and should have I put this question in a support ticket?
Thanks..in advance...

[Matt]

Just create an account in WHM with his real domain name. Then when you go into WHM and "list accounts" there is an IP address next to his account with a link to his site. You can preview it there before he points his DNS information.

Then he/you can access the "staging" site over the IP. He can also access the cpanel and phpmyadmin stuff from yourresellerdomain.com/cpanel with his username and password that you assigned when you created the account.

The other option is to use a dummy domain, but then it is more work later. You might as well setup the staging site with the real domain, it won't hurt anything to do so. The only issue you may have is trying to email the person because if his email address is @hisdomain.com and you are setting up hisdomain.com on the server, the mailserver will think that hisdomain.com is a local site because it checks itself first, before checking the internet. When it sees that the site lives on this server, it will deliver your email to your staging server not the real site. That can be fixed of course, but the best bet is to make sure you keep in contact with him via an off-site email address until you resolve the domain.

Let me know if you need more information.

[monkette]

Right on!Thanks, Matt, and as always you are the best! Glowhost is the best!