Hi, all. I am very new to DNN and the community. Here's my story:

I am a grad student interning at a university library. The university's network administration consists of one guy, so he installed DNN to allow the library to manage their own website. My job is to totally revamp the library's website. Here's my problem: I have full privileges (host/admin) to make changes on DNN, but I have no access to the server proper. 

I want some sort of sandbox environment to make changes to the DNN site without worrying about totally botching it. My original plan was to back it up to my home PC and develop it in a localhost environment, but that plan is dead as I have no access to backup the DNN directory and database. So, my question to you vets is as follows:

How can I develop the website while still being able to roll back to the stable version until I am finished with development? Remember, I have no server access. Is it possible for me to make a duplicate portal from within DNN without making any changes in IIS? Is it possible for me to save the current state of the portal from within DNN and revert back to it at a moment's notice? How?

Any help is appreciated. I am in way over my head. I could do the whole thing in a matter of hours using plain HTML/CSS/JS, but I have to use this blasted CMS...