[CLUE-Tech] simulating DNS function

[Nate Duehr]

Gus S.Calabrese wrote:

>
> I have multiple domains on my webserver and it is working fine.
>
> My question is to whether there is a way to directly access a particular
> domain on my server without using a DNS server.

No. 

You can change your /etc/hosts file on your local machine you're using 
to hit the server with so it'll report different names to the webserver 
when you connect... that's one workaround...

Something like :

192.168.10.1   name1.virtualhost.net
# 192.168.10.1    name2.virtualhost.net
# 192.168.10.1    name3.virtualhost.net

And just uncomment the one you want to test and then type the name into 
your browser, and when you need to switch, comment out the other one -- 
this will work if all you have is name-based virtual hosting on your 
Apache machine.

Another common tactic if your webservers have a connection to both an 
external and an internal network is to assign both name-based virtuals 
and multiple internal IP addresses to the different named virtuals on 
the Apache machine so you can "hit" each site from inside only with the 
IP addresses from a list you keep.  So from outside everyone's hitting 
the same IP but different name, and from the inside of your network 
you'd hit each virtual host by a different private-side IP.

There's various workarounds... but nothing 100% clean.  Add SSL to the 
mix and it becomes a complete mess without multiple public IP's because 
of the reverse DNS matching requirements of SSL-enabled browsers.  
(Unless you like your users seeing SSL error messages or they don't care...)

Hope that gives you some ideas.

Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com