[clue-tech] Pointing browser to one of many virtual hosts

[David L. Anselmi]

Gus Calabrese wrote:
> Is there a way for a browser to be instructed to access 71.237.33.36 and 
> tell the webserver to access xyz.com virtual host ?

Well, maybe.  The packets between machines use the IP to that gets used 
regardless.  The virtual host is determined by the host field in the 
HTTP header.

You can try this using telnet, an example is here:

http://www.xoc.net/works/tips/telnet.asp

As for getting a browser to do that, well, most don't seem to have an 
interface for that.  So the easiest way would be to make an entry in 
your hosts file like:

71.237.33.36 xyz.com

Then when the browser looks for xyz.com it will get the IP you want. 
DNS isn't required but the right hosts entry on each machine that needs 
it is.  And you may have to change name lookups to use files before DNS 
(this is the default on Debian).

Windows does have a hosts file too, google can probably remember where 
better than I can.  Yeah, it does:

http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netsysm/article.php/991281

Dave