Domain name to directory translation

[Barry Margolin]

In article <7jknud$b3u$1 at gandalf.ocslink.com>,
Wayne R Miller <webmaster at ciblink.com> wrote:
>This may be a silly question by how do hosting services like webprovider.com
>and freeservers.com translate domain names directly to a directory without
>using a different IP number?

Web browsers send a "Host:" request header that contains the hostname
portion of the URL.  The web server looks this up in its virtual host
configuration information.

>I this possible being done by routing each domain or host name to a
>different port on the same IP number.  I run MS DNS server on NT 4 and
>haven't seen any examples of how this is done.

It has nothing to do with the DNS server, it's in the web server
configuration.  The same is true if you use different IP's.  The only
difference is whether it keys off an IP address or hostname.

Note that not all web servers support use of the Host header.  For example,
I think IIS still requires separate IP's.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar at bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
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