If everything goes to one IP which is CF-enabled, you should be able to
parse this and probably (depending on the server) can get the host hame from
the CGI variable for the URL requested (i.e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]) to help
re-direct the user to the right location.
--Doug
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Theobald [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2000 7:29 PM
To: CF-Talk
Subject: RE: How Feasable Is This?
If you are parsing the host name in Cold Fusion anyway, you really don't
need to set it up in the Web Server.
With some programs where every single request passes through one main
"handler" I wonder just what I need the web server for at all :-)
At 07:25 PM 10/14/00 -0700, Eron Cohen wrote:
>Peter and Dave,
>
>Thanks for your help. I still have a question though,
>so pardon me if I am being dense:
>
>Since I plan to use ColdFusion to parse the hostname
>(and not IIS) and since everything will be parsed by
>code on a machine that is at a single IP address, why
>can't I setup a wildcard DNS entry (The way Peter
>described) and just handle all the traffic to that IP
>address with a ColdFusion template that will build the
>appropriate pages for that host on the fly?
>
>Will I have to do anything at all in IIS? In other
>words, if there is a wildcard DNS entry in our DNS
>server which points ANYHOST.ourdomain.com to the same
>IP Address, since ColdFusion will be parsing and
>handing it from there, does it really matter what
>happens from there on the DNS or IIS sides of things?
>It seems to me that I can just use #CGI.SERVER_NAME#
>to figure out what host is being called and just go
>dynamically from there.
>
>Thanks for the advice,
>
>Eron
>
>
>Peter Wrote:
>You can set up a wildcard DNS entry for *.mydomain.com
>=> IP address. Do this just once ahead of time. I
>don't know specifically what the DNS file looks like
>for this, I just ask my ISP (Verio) to set it up and
>they do...
>
>Then on your web server you set up a name-based
>virtual server for each name you want to catch (and
>you should have a "default" virtual server for
>everything else you haven't specified). To do this do
>what Dave says below...
>
>At 09:43 PM 10/14/00 -0400, Dave Watts wrote:
>>> I want to set up a site so that anyone can create
>>> their own custom site URL in the form of
>>> MY_CUSTOM_NAME.ourdomain.com. In other words, I
>want
>>> to be able to take any incoming URL that ends with
>>> ourdomain.com and send it to a template that looks
>at
>>> the machine name portion of the URL and redirects
>it
>>> to the appropriate place depending on the first
>part
>>> of the URL. The idea is to allow people make a
>>> website for their company without me having to go
>into
>>> Internet Information Server for each new account
>and
>>> create a virtual directory for that account.
>>>
>>> So the questions are:
>>>
>>> 1) Is it a matter of a DNS entry to make it so that
>>> ANYTHING.ourdomain.com will always be directed to
>the
>>> same template? If not, how can this be done?
>>>
>>> 2) Are there any problems I should be aware of with
>>> doing it this way?
>>>
>>> I plan to write a small ColdFusion script that will
>>> then parse the URL and handle the rest from there.
>>
>>The MY_CUSTOM_NAME portion of your URL is called the
>host name. You'll need
>>a DNS entry for each host name, and that entry will
>have to point to a
>>specific IP address (an A record, in DNS parlance),
>or to an alias that
>>itself points to an IP address (a CNAME record). If
>you point multiple host
>>names to the same location, your web server will
>require the browser to send
>>the host header name to point to a specific
>directory, or you could have the
>>script you mention redirect the user to the
>appropriate location.
>>
>>In either case, setting up additional virtual servers
>in IIS won't be the
>>hard part, given the number of utilities that exist
>for just that purpose,
>>such as Lewis Sellers' set of CFX tags. Changing the
>DNS entries, on the
>>other hand, might be more difficult, depending on
>what DNS server you're
>>using, how it's set up, and whether you can access it
>from your web server.
>>Most DNS servers use text files to store DNS entries,
>and most will probably
>>require that you edit the text files to add the
>changes you want; they may
>>also require a restart if they provide their own
>interface for managing DNS
>>records.
>>
>>Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software
>>http://www.figleaf.com/
>>voice: (202) 797-5496
>>fax: (202) 797-5444
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>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Peter Theobald, Chief Technology Officer
>LiquidStreaming http://www.liquidstreaming.com
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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