Sitecore CMS normally uses web database content to display in fornt-end website.

What is the way to run Sitecore front-end website pointing to master database.

Does that mean running Sitecore Live Mode ?


Running your website in "Live Mode", means you serve content from your master database.

This is a broadly applied practice in a distributed environment, to have your CM instance function as a QA website. In this way, your content editors can review their changes on the website, before publishing to the live site on the CD instance.



To answer the question: "What is the way to run Sitecore front-end website pointing to master database."

There are a few ways you can run your Sitecore website off the Master database.

1) You can edit the site configuration database attribute

2) You can append ?sc_database=master to the request URL

3) You can append ?sc_mode=preview to the request URL, however, this will require you to log in to Sitecore.


From the Sitecore documentation:

In Sitecore, you can run a website directly from the Master database – this is referred to as running in live mode. Running in live mode eliminates the need to publish content and is similar to viewing a website in the Preview client.

To enable live mode alter your site's configuration as follows:

<site name="website" database="master" filterItems="true" ... />

Setting filterItems to true is optional. When true, it preserves the Publishing and Lifetime restrictions when running in live mode.

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