Connecting to your sandbox

Once your access request is approved you will have a sandbox hostname and a username.

SSH

Add a blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. like this to ~/.ssh/config so you do not have to retype the details:

Host wporgsandbox
	HostName <your-sandbox-hostname>
	User <your-sandbox-username>
	ForwardAgent yes
	IdentitiesOnly yes
	IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Replace the placeholders with the values from your access grant, and point IdentityFile at the key you supplied when you requested access. Then:

ssh wporgsandbox

ForwardAgent yes forwards your local SSHSSH Secure SHell – a protocol for securely connecting to a remote system in addition to or in place of a password. agent to the sandbox, which is what lets you push to GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/ from there without copying a private key onto a shared server. Do not copy your private key to the sandbox.

Where things live

Path	What it is
/home/<your-username>	Your sandbox home directory
/home/wporg/public_html	The WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ web root
/home/wordcamp/public_html	The WordCamp.org web root
/home/buddypress/public_html	BuddyPress-hosted sites, including profiles.wordpress.org

Viewing your sandbox in a browser

You do not need a proxy or a VPN for this. What you do need is for the WordPress.org domains to resolve to your sandbox instead of to production. Requesting the sandbox address directly returns a 403, because nothing tells the server which site you are asking for.

Add the sandbox address supplied with your access grant to /etc/hosts, one line per domain you need:

<your-sandbox-address>	wordpress.org
<your-sandbox-address>	www.wordpress.org
<your-sandbox-address>	plugins.wordpress.org
<your-sandbox-address>	themes.wordpress.org
<your-sandbox-address>	translate.wordpress.org
<your-sandbox-address>	make.wordpress.org

Add only the domains you are actually working on. Every line you add is a domain your browser can no longer reach in production.

These entries stay active until you remove them. If WordPress.org starts behaving strangely in your browser days later, check /etc/hosts before you check anything else.

Testing from the command line

curl can override DNSDNS DNS is an acronym for Domain Name System – how you assign a human readable address to a website’s exact numeric coded location (ie. wordpress.org uses the actual IP address 198.143.164.252). for a single request, which avoids editing /etc/hosts at all:

curl --resolve wordpress.org:443:<your-sandbox-address> https://wordpress.org/

Add --insecure if the sandbox presents a certificate that does not match the domain.

De-sandboxing

Some operations must not run against a sandbox — most notably anything that uploads media. When you need to act as a normal user again, de-sandbox yourself before continuing. See Working on a sandbox.