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Setting up IIS 5.1 on WinXP to use short server names

Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2011 10:22 pm
by BarrySumpter
Just looking as IIS 5.1 now to see if I can get it to work with short server names:
Instead of 192.168.1.1 or localhost
I want to use
http://pc - for PCs to access my LiveCode Server
or
http://m - for mobiles to access my LiveCode Server

Use DNS for multiple names http://www.xxx.com
instead of Wins for resolving machine names, workgroups, etc
WINS server can only be installed on server O/S's, unless you can find a 3rd party add-on
I belive that DNS has to be on a server as well. So can't accomplish what I want with WINS NOR DNS.





Configure Host Header Names in IIS 5.0
To configure host header names in IIS
HOW TO: Use Host Header Names to Host Multiple Sites from One IP Address in IIS 5.0

Start the Internet Service Manager (Iis.msc).
Right-click the Web site to be configured, and then click Properties.
On the Web Site tab, select the IP address that the site will use.

Note: if you only have one IP address on the server, select All Unassigned, and set the TCP Port that should be used (usually 80).
Click Advanced.
In the Multiple identities for this Web Site list, select the identity that you want to use.
Click Edit, and then add the desired host header name.

NOTE: If you want this site to respond to more than one host header name, use the Add button to add additional identities to this list. Specify a different host header name for each identity, but be sure to use the same IP address and port.
Apply these changes and start the Web site (if it is not already running).
Register the host header name with the appropriate name resolution system.

If the computer is on an intranet (a private LAN that uses Internet technology), register it with the intranet's name resolution system, such as the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS).

If the computer is on the Internet, register the host header name with the Domain Name System (DNS), which is administered by InterNic.
After the host header name is registered with the name resolution system, test it from a browser by attempting to browse the host header name. The browser should open the expected Web site.


Troubleshooting

When your computer boots or when you manually start the Microsoft Internet Information Server service, Event Viewer may log the following event:
Event ID : 115
Source : w3svc
Description : The service could not bind instance X.
This problem can occur when some or all of the Web sites that are using Host Headers have the same port number defined for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Internet Information Server 4.0 does not support the use of Host Headers for SSL. For more information, see the references links below.
Erratic behavior can occur when applying a host header name to the default Web site if add-on packages for IIS (such as Microsoft Proxy Server) are also being used. For this reason, it is generally not recommended that you apply a host header name to the default Web site created by IIS.

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Use DNS for multiple names http://www.xxx.com
instead of Wins for resolving machine names, workgroups, etc
WINS server can only be installed on server O/S's, unless you can find a 3rd party add-on
I belive that DNS has to be on a server as well. So can't accomplish what I want with WINS NOR DNS.

Create the DNS record for the server
Create the DNS aliases for the customer domains that point to the server DNS record
Make sure all systems trying to access the webpage are looking at your DNS server for DNS

The link I posted earlier has details on how to create the DNS records.

The browser tries to surf to http://www.foo.com, so it issues a DNS querry
Your DNS server looks up http://www.foo.com, which points to mytestserver.mydomain.com & returns the IP address for mytestserver.mydomain.com
The browser sends a HTTP GET to the IP address with fields in the header saying http://www.foo.com
IIS on mytestserver.mydomain.com gets the request and looks at the header and finds http://www.foo.com
IIS looks at the host header configuration that you've setup and sees http://www.foo.com goes someplace other than the default webpage, so returns webpages for http://www.foo.com


IIS does not directly "talk with DNS" in that respect. DNS just resolves names to IP's. WINS could be made to resolve the names, but it not the best solution. WINS was only designed to resolve machine names, workgroups, etc. It does not work with fully quallified domain names.

In my previous example WINS could resolve the IP for mytestserver, but not mytestserver.mydomain.com nor http://www.foo.com.

----
understanding_host_headers
http://www.it-notebook.org/iis/article/ ... eaders.htm

Re: Setting up IIS 5.1 on WinXP to use short server names

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:34 pm
by BarrySumpter
Neither MS WINS Server NOR MS DNS Server could be installed on WIndowsXP.

Downloaded and installed Simple DNS Plus.

Simple DNS Plus | File | Edit DNS Records | Quick Zone Wizard| Zone Name: m.com | Web Server IP: 192.168.1.6 | OK
Simple DNS Plus | File | Edit DNS Records | Quick Zone Wizard| Zone Name: pc.com | Web Server IP: 192.168.1.6 | OK

Set static IP address for Web Server using: 192.168.1.6
Configuring Windows XP to use local DNS server
http://www.simpledns.com/kb.aspx?kbid=1126

Disabled DNS client on server
Disabling the Windows "DNS Client" service
http://www.simpledns.com/kb.aspx?kbid=1089

All working properly on Server.

But not on other PCs and Mobiles.
So DID NOT set static IP address for all.
But DID change Preferred DNS Server to:192.168.1.6 only.
All working correctly.

Now just need to see if I can get m and pc to work like m.com and pc.com.

Re: Setting up IIS 5.1 on WinXP to use short server names

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 3:53 am
by BarrySumpter
with all pcs n mobiles DNS1 set to 192.168.1.6
m.com - works
pc.com - works
http://m/ - works
http://pc/ - works


m - does NOT work
pc - does NOT work
http://m - does NOT work
http://pc - does NOT work
m/ - does NOT work
pc/ - does NOT work
/m/ - does NOT work
/pc/ - - does NOT work

Re: Setting up IIS 5.1 on WinXP to use short server names

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2012 3:58 am
by BarrySumpter
I'm wondering now if I can get the DNS server to redirect lc.com to lc.index.com.

I'm thinking I can get the DNS server to trap lc.com to send to my iis 5 server like m.com and pc.com.
But I will need default.htm,etc to redirect?