Virtual Web Hosting Services

On Sat, 18 Nov 1995, Rickard Schoultz wrote:

> discovers that the most popular web browsers makes a dns lookup followed 
> by a reverse lookup of the URL they are looking at and presents this 
> information at the top of the page.  This means that a reference to 
> http://www.company.com/company/ will show up as 
> http://www.provider.com/company/ on the user's screen.

I don't think the client does a reverse lookup. But in the configuration 
of your httpd, you tell it what it's hostname is. When people make a 
wrong reference that requires a redirect, the server sends the configured 
name as part of the new URL.

In general people have a tendensy of forgetting the trailing slash on 
URL's when it's a directory. This makes the client establish an extra TCP 
connection - the first one only to get a redirect.

For example http://www.DK.net/nic would make the server redirect the
client to http://www.DK.net/nic/ making it connect twice to get the wanted
URL. 

I believe that's what you're seing.

I do not see a problem with allocating an IP# for an extra
pseudo-interface on a computer as the complete URL isn't transfered today.
If we are not allowed to do it, people will get C's to do the same (in the
name of the organisation wanting the service), which is much more
expensive. 

-- Robert Martin-Legène,                     = EUnet Denmark =
   DKnet, Fruebjergvej 3, DK-2100 Kobenhavn O, +45 39 17 99 00