DNS Theory Questions

[dustbuster]

I know about how DNS works in theory from a client perspective (a client being a browser like IE or Netscape). I would like to know about DNS from a server perspective.

For example,
I type in

http://www.tek-tips.com

into my address bar and hit go. From there my request is sent to a DNS server that through a process returns the IP address of the server I am going to connect to. This part I see.

What I don't know is from there on. My browser is "sent" to the IP address, it requests a page, the server serves the page and I'm happy. That's about all I know.

If the IP address I am going to visit has a number of virtually hosted domains then how does the server know which one I'm trying to get?

Any help would be great

 

[FredUG]

"If the IP address I am going to visit has a number of virtually hosted domains then how does the server know which one I'm trying to get?"

DNS get's you TO the web server but the webserver, itself, translates the name to the v-hosted site or they use a static IP, per site. I've done v-hosting both ways.

Hope that helps,

FredUG

 

[dustbuster]

Yes that helps a bit. I know that DNS gets you to the server but I don't know how it translates the name to the virtually hosted site. Is it done through some sort of query string or some sort of packet solution? I assume there is a standard way of doing it.

 

[FaiTHLeSS]

When you try to connect to a site it looks at the host header information you have sent to the server to decide which site you are trying to access.

 

[FredUG]

"Yes that helps a bit. I know that DNS gets you to the server but I don't know how it translates the name to the virtually hosted site."

It doesn't, DNS *only* translates IP to name and name to IP. The web server is what translates the v-host to the proper place using the headers. Better?

FredUG

 

[dustbuster]

OK. I get that the DNS role in this ends when it gives you the IP address (I hope that's right anyway).

"When you try to connect to a site it looks at the host header information you have sent to the server to decide which site you are trying to access. "

Can you tell me what information is transferred between the browser and the server once the browser has resolved the IP address?

If someone could explain that part to me that would be great. If not can you point me in the right direction so I can Google it.

Maybe this should have been posted under a different thread name, I guess.

 

[Fujiko]

" If the IP address I am going to visit has a number of virtually hosted domains then how does the server know which one I'm trying to get? "

here's what will happen, the dns server will jump to another dns server, and to another until it gets the correct address