Test SP using a clone setup + migration and metadata queries

[Peter Schober]

* David Perry <DPerry at hull-college.ac.uk> [2013-09-12 13:11]:
> The clone doesn't have an external hostname either - will I be
> better off getting it DNS'd internally only as
> heritage2.hull-college.ac.uk, doing all the setup as that then just
> change to the 'live' name/entityID of heritage.hull-college.ac.uk
> when done?
> We can set Forefront up to just forward the certificate that's on
> the server. I believe that this check will fail in the test
> environment as the hostname is wrong.

So the question really is, how do I swap in a new server for an old
one without disruption?  There are too many ways to do that.

You could start with an exact copy of the system (same DNS name,
webserver config, entityID, keys used for SAML, everything; only the
IP address will need to be different and potentially only reachable by
you).  Then modify your local (i.e., on your workstation PC where you
want to test this) DSN resolver configuration to make the host name
resolve to the new IP address of the test system, e.g. via the hosts
file, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)
Your local HTTP User Agent will then interact with the cloned system
via the old DNS name.  The IdP will be fine with this as all
interactions to the new system will only be coming from your user
agent and the DNS name of the SP stays the same.  All the data will
just end up on the new system based on your manipulated DNS resolver.

Keep an eye on the SP and/or web server logs to make sure you're
actually interacting with the new system, though ;)
-peter