IP assignment for virtual webhosting

Hello,

Promote namebased web hosting seems to me a good idea, but I do not agree to
forbid IP-based webhosting. In fact, with old user agents, any user can know
the list of all webs hosted under a single IP address. And for an hosting
company (our main activity), it could make a fuss that one company amoung
its customers knows it is hosted on the same server as one of its
competitors...

Regards.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Thierry LOUAIL                                                      ECRITEL
Directeur Associé                                         www.ecritel.fr
Tel: 0140612000                      3 rue Pondichery PARIS 15

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De:	Nurani Nimpuno [SMTP:nurani at ripe.net]
> Date:	mercredi 17 novembre 1999 10:51
> À:	lir-wg at ripe.net
> Objet:	IP assignment for virtual webhosting
> 
> Dear LIR-WG,
> 
> We would like to hear your opinions on the issue of IP assignments for
> virtual webhosting. The current policy is rather old and in the meantime
> a lot of things have changed; most importantly the market for webhosting
> products, as well as the development of the HTTP protocol and related
> software.
> 
> TERMINOLOGY
> 
> Before we begin, however, we would like to address the issue of
> terminology
> for this subject. The term 'virtual webhosting' is being used a lot but it
> 
> is often not clear in which way it should be interpreted. We suggest the
> following terminology:
> 
> Server: A physical computer with an operating system installed on it. This
> could be UNIX, Windows, Mac, or something else. The webserver runs as an
> application on this OS.
> 
> Webserver: An application program that accepts connections in order to
> service requests by sending back responses. That is, a piece of software
> that runs on a physical server. Examples of webservers are Apache, IIS,
> and
> Stronghold.
> 
> User agent / Client: The client that initiates a request. These are often
> browsers, editors, spiders (web-traversing robots), or other end-user
> tools.
> 
> Hostname: A nameserver entry that resolves to an IP address. This could be
> an A or a CNAME record.
> 
> Virtual host: A hostname resolving to the IP address of a server, the
> webserver of which handles several hostnames.
> 
> IP-based virtual hosting: Many hostnames hosted on the same server, one IP
> address for each hostname.
> 
> Namebased virtual hosting: Many hostnames hosted on the same server, all
> hostnames resolve to the same IP address.
> 
> OUR SUGGESTION
> 
> The RIPE NCC has followed the deployment of HTTP 1.1 closely over the past
> year. According to recent surveys, a vast majority of clients now support
> HTTP 1.1 (namebased HTTP requests). It is our belief that the majority of
> webserver applications support namebased webhosting as well.
> 
> In recent years we have seen a boom in the registration of second-level
> domains. This has led to a great demand for webhosting services. Using one
> IP address per domain uses an enormous amount of IP addresses. With HTTP
> 1.1 this is no longer necessary. We therefore suggest to promote namebased
> webhosting and to change the current policy so that IP addresses can no
> longer be assigned for IP-based webhosting.
> 
> Please provide us with any feedback or comments you might have.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Nurani Nimpuno (Registration Services Manager) and 
> Simon Skals (Hostmaster)
> RIPE NCC