Re: [vox-tech] apache / dns question

[Micah Cowan <MAPSmicah@cowanbox.com>]

On Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 09:04:23AM -0700, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> could someone tell me if the anding of these 2 statements this is possible:
> 
>     dirac.org points to belial.ucdavis.edu (for ssh, ping, ftp, etc)
>     www.dirac.org points to landau.ucdavis.edu  (for web services)
> 
> 
> 
> the dns record for dirac.org currently looks like:
> 
> i'm wondering if it's as simple as adding something like:
> 
>       www.dirac.org.   IN  A 169.237.42.71
> 
> for the DNS record (169.237.42.71 is landau.ucdavis.edu).   now i have to know
> what to do about the web server on landau, because that'll be getting www
> requests for "www.dirac.org".

Absolutely.  This is done all the time
> 
> is that what "virtual web hosting" is?

Well, virtual name hosting is when you have more than one name
for a single box.  for instance, www.cowanbox.com and www.hackmania.org
could point to the same IP.  Apache recognizes which one is desired
based on the "Host" HTTP Header field that nearly all browsers supply
(it is also part of the HTTP/1.1 spec).  However, if an older or non-
mainstream browser should not supply it, Apache has no way of knowing
which page you desire, and will default to some default website the
webmaster chose.  This usually isn't a problem, as long as you avoid
using absolute pathnames on your site, and make all other sites
reside in subdirectories of the main site.  Then you at least get:

www.defaultsite.net/www.hackmania.org/index.html

...but of course, this has nothing to do with what you're doing ;)
> 
> 
> thanks!
> pete