Testing website configuration without a domain: Create and enable a vhost with your servers ip similar to the following:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name x.x.x.x;
    root /var/www/vhost/;

location / {
    index index.html index.htm index.php;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
    include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_pass  127.0.0.1:9000;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/vhost/$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

You can then load the website by typing the directory similar to the following:

x.x.x.x/websitedirectory