IIS and PTR

[kryption224]

Im a newb to IIS and linking a page to a FQDN. I have a site that is being hosted by a provider but have another site that Im hosting in house that is a sub domain. sub.main.com. I have the sub.main.com linked with the ip thru the provider. The problem is getting the subdomain to responded when goin to the site. Im baffled. I thought i just had to make a ptr record and point it to the directory that i wanted it to respond to but im lost. please help?

[valter]

You should post more info about your hosting situation as well as DNS management. BTW DNS record can not bind to folder but to IP address...

[kryption224]

I have a Windows 2003 Web ED server. IIS has a Virtual Directory that has a sales application in it. the program can me accessed thru IP/salesprogram. the actual files are in C:\program files\Company\salesprogram. I have a site maindomain.com hosted by a provider. I made a subdomain thru them salesprogram.maindomain.com. Everything is good to there. They told me to make a PTR to the server. So I put (A) 192.16.25.10 (of server) salesprogram.maindomain.com WAN IP. Also NS salesprogram.maindomain.com WAN, and reverse lookup 192.16.25.xxx with a PTR 192.16.25.10 salesprogram.maindomain.com.

Know the problem is I need the Virtual Directory to be linked to the salesprogram.maindomain.com. I dont know tomuch about IIS. The Virtual Directory is a child of Default, that has nothing in it. Tried to link in Website tab, next to the IP Address Advance button, but in the Virtual Directory it does not have that option. Im boggoled.

The provider knows nothing about FQDN, its kinda scary if Im there only customer that has thought of this idea.

[valter]

First, you can not use private IP addresses on the providers DNS management, as they will not resolve to anything. If your web server has global (public) ip address then that's the address you should use when seting up the DNS record.

Second, you have to setup the same subdomain on your IIS, make a new website, point it to the app dir, and set host header to what ever your subdomain is.

If you're using gateway with single global IP address and port forwarding function, then you have to setup your IIS after this article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308163/en-us (article is intended for IIS 5.0, but same apply to IIS 6.0)

[kryption224]

Thank you. I think it came down to it needed to be the main site, instead of being in the default virtual directory. I was playing with the header thinking thats what it did but couldnt find any info on it at technet2.microsoft.com

[Zartach]

Thank you. I think it came down to it needed to be the main site, instead of being in the default virtual directory. I was playing with the header thinking thats what it did but couldnt find any info on it at technet2.microsoft.com

IIS has the option to host multiple instances of websites, the host header is used when you have more than one site running on the same port.

When you have for example : www.contoso.com and webmail.contoso.com running both on port 80, by default if you type any of the addresses in the browser you will end up on the default (first) website IIS has listed.

Now if you configure IIS host headers, you can 'bind' the dns name www.contoso.com to an interface (represented by an IP address). You can 'bind' multiple sites to the same interface so the configuration would be:

www.contoso.com host header x.x.x.x

webmail.contoso.com host header x.x.x.x

Where x.x.x.x is your IP address, by doing this the end user can type both dns names in his/her browser and end up on the specific page you configured the host header to.

At the moment i have a running configuration at a customer who is behind a Firewall, his fqdn's point all to the firewall's IP (7 dns addresses) and the firewall forwards them to the internal IIS server.

IIS checks the host header vs the browser request and directs the user to the proper page.

Hope it helps,