Re: [SLUG] URL question...

From: Ian C. Blenke (icblenke@nks.net)
Date: Wed Sep 12 2007 - 14:28:31 EDT


Mike Branda wrote:

> It's a dns record issue.

Sadly, it's a DNS record issue _and_ a virtual hosting issue.

First, a DNS record issue pointing to "www" must exist if you wish to
honor requests for "www.yourdomain.com".

This is what Mike was referring to.

Secondly, the web server needs to know how to handle requests for the
virtual host "www.yourdomain.com".

When a web browser tries to connect to a site using HTTP 1.1, it
connects to port 80 on the IP address it resolves for the host, and then
sends a Host: header along with the actual GET/POST/etc request.

    $ telnet www.yourdomain.com 80
    Escape character is '^]'.
    GET / HTTP/1.1
    Host: www.yourdomain.com

    ....

For a massive virtual hosting setup where there are hundreds or
thousands of websites hosted by the same HTTP server, the HTTP server
uses this Host: header to decide which website you were actually trying
to connect to.

With Apache, this is what ServerName and ServerAlias directives are for.

Very few webbrowsers or HTTP clients still use HTTP 1.0, which does NOT
include a Host: header. For these clients, there is usually a "catch
all" vhost (usually the first one defined in apache) which handles both
these older clients and newer clients asking for a vhost that isn't
configured correctly. This is usually a hosting provider's splash
advertising page.

Hope this helps clear things up just a little more.

- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net> <ian@blenke.com> http://ian.blenke.com/

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