Multiple Sites on IIS

[yu217171]

Hi everyone,

I have a question regarding multiple default websites in IIS. Here's the situation. We have a corporate template given to us. The problem with this template is that the site must be the default website or else it won't work. The references don't display properly (images/scripts).

So we cannot have multiple sites on the same server. My question is: Is there a way to allow for multiple default websites? Or there is there a better method that someone can recommend. Thanks in advance.

Keith

 

[ChrisHirst]

there can be only one default website (as the name implies) you are probably confused between virtual hosts and virtual folders.

Many templates are configured to work only in the root of website and virtual hosts each have their own root.

you do this by configuring DNS to resolve the names to the server then using host headers to configure IIS for each site.



Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[yu217171]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the response. After doing some research, I found the following solutions. Below is a note I left for my manager. Hope this helps some other people.

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The first method is to bind multiple IP addresses to one NIC. The IP address is then bound to a specific website. If you would like a DNS entry created (i.e.:

http://hr.intranet.com),

the DNS entry can be added to the DNS server and the name resolution should work after being propagated by AD. This is the simplest solution and works great.

The second method is modifying the host headers in IIS so that multiple sites can exist on a single IP addresses. This method is more complicated to set up and there may be issues if a user types in the IP address of the server in the address bar directly. This will cause IIS to bring up the default website. This method must make use of multiple DNS entries; otherwise IIS won’t know where to redirect your request.

The third method is similar to the second method, whereas one IP address allows for multiple sites. The way of differentiating the sites is through the port number. By default, HTTP requests are sent and received on port 80. Each different site would have a non-standard port number (8080, 8081 etc) and users would link to the web site using

http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080.

Another issue I came across was that the Server editions of IIS are different from the XP Pro (Workstation) versions. So the above methods can NOT be mimicked on XP Pro or 2K Pro machines.

Keith

 

[ikendo]

I ran into same issue like you Yu21717.
I have 2 different IIS 5.0 server running. No matter what I try to lunch my 2nd web server, it just wont go. What I done was change to different port on the IIS. It's pain in the ass to some end user, most of time they forgot the :8080.