Is this config possible

Is this config possible

am 19.07.2006 12:10:02 von hannc

I currently have a webserver windows 2003 iis6 one default site uses 2 host
headers one public ip address so www.xxx.com is the main sire. Dns settings
are forwarded to isp. This works fine and i have 2 virtaul directories under
the deault which we access www.xxx.com/a and www.xxx.com/b.

Now our company has decided they want another company to host www.xxx.com
but we still need to host www.xxx.com/a and b. The first thing i thought i
had to do in iis was create new sites insted of the virtual directories. I
created these with host headers of www.a.xxx.com and www.b.xxx.com. I went
onto my isp site and added dns entries (a records) for www.a.xxx.com and
www.b.xx.com.

The new sites dont work from inside or out. The company that is going to be
hosting our www.xxx.com have just given me an ip address????
Please Help
Thanks

Re: Is this config possible

am 19.07.2006 12:41:07 von Daniel Crichton

hannc wrote on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 03:10:02 -0700:

> I currently have a webserver windows 2003 iis6 one default site uses 2
> host headers one public ip address so www.xxx.com is the main sire. Dns
> settings are forwarded to isp. This works fine and i have 2 virtaul
> directories under the deault which we access www.xxx.com/a and
> www.xxx.com/b.
>
> Now our company has decided they want another company to host www.xxx.com
> but we still need to host www.xxx.com/a and b. The first thing i thought
> i had to do in iis was create new sites insted of the virtual directories.
> I created these with host headers of www.a.xxx.com and www.b.xxx.com.

So you'll need the other company to set up redirects from /a to
www.a.xxx.com and /b to www.b.xxx.com as well.

> I
> went onto my isp site and added dns entries (a records) for
> www.a.xxx.com and www.b.xx.com.

Did you create these as A records to www.a and www.b in the xxx.com zone,
or did you create 2 new child zones a and b and then configure the www
records there?

> The new sites dont work from inside or out. The company that is going to
> be hosting our www.xxx.com have just given me an ip address????

Sounds like the DNS isn't working, verify by using nslookup. Are your DNS
lookups via the ISP servers or caching secondaries? In the latter case, have
you allowed enough time for the cached zone to expire and then pick up the
new zone records from the ISP server?

Normally a perimeter firewall will prevent the use of external IPs from
inside the LAN, so to test from inside you need to also make sure whatever
hostname lookup system you're using from the testing PC (ie. internal DNS,
DNS rewriting from the ISP, hosts file, etc) has been updated with the
appropriate internal IP addresses for these new hostnames.

Dan

Re: Is this config possible

am 19.07.2006 13:10:03 von hannc

Hi Dan

Thanks for the quick reply.
I went onto the isp to check the dns settings all i have is under dns
settings zone - the origianl entry Hostname = www, record type 'A' and ip
address (my own public address still). The new ones are Hostname = a, record
type 'A', address (my own public address) Hostname = b, record type 'A',
address (my own public address). I dont see any options for child zones.

Also on the web server if i do a nslookup on a.xxx.con and b.xxx.com it goes
away to some funny address i dont even know - even though i have added them
in the hosts file and a.xxx.com and the internal address of the nic. On the
dns settings
of the isp do i need to change my original address to the address the new
company has give me.

Thanks Again Claire
"Daniel Crichton" wrote:

> hannc wrote on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 03:10:02 -0700:
>
> > I currently have a webserver windows 2003 iis6 one default site uses 2
> > host headers one public ip address so www.xxx.com is the main sire. Dns
> > settings are forwarded to isp. This works fine and i have 2 virtaul
> > directories under the deault which we access www.xxx.com/a and
> > www.xxx.com/b.
> >
> > Now our company has decided they want another company to host www.xxx.com
> > but we still need to host www.xxx.com/a and b. The first thing i thought
> > i had to do in iis was create new sites insted of the virtual directories.
> > I created these with host headers of www.a.xxx.com and www.b.xxx.com.
>
> So you'll need the other company to set up redirects from /a to
> www.a.xxx.com and /b to www.b.xxx.com as well.
>
> > I
> > went onto my isp site and added dns entries (a records) for
> > www.a.xxx.com and www.b.xx.com.
>
> Did you create these as A records to www.a and www.b in the xxx.com zone,
> or did you create 2 new child zones a and b and then configure the www
> records there?
>
> > The new sites dont work from inside or out. The company that is going to
> > be hosting our www.xxx.com have just given me an ip address????
>
> Sounds like the DNS isn't working, verify by using nslookup. Are your DNS
> lookups via the ISP servers or caching secondaries? In the latter case, have
> you allowed enough time for the cached zone to expire and then pick up the
> new zone records from the ISP server?
>
> Normally a perimeter firewall will prevent the use of external IPs from
> inside the LAN, so to test from inside you need to also make sure whatever
> hostname lookup system you're using from the testing PC (ie. internal DNS,
> DNS rewriting from the ISP, hosts file, etc) has been updated with the
> appropriate internal IP addresses for these new hostnames.
>
> Dan
>
>
>

Re: Is this config possible

am 19.07.2006 13:22:06 von Daniel Crichton

hannc wrote on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 04:10:03 -0700:

> Hi Dan
>
> Thanks for the quick reply.
> I went onto the isp to check the dns settings all i have is under dns
> settings zone - the origianl entry Hostname = www, record type 'A' and ip
> address (my own public address still). The new ones are Hostname = a,
> record type 'A', address (my own public address) Hostname = b, record type
> 'A', address (my own public address). I dont see any options for child
> zones.

In that case www.a.xxx.com and www.b.xxx.com don't exist. The www part
denotes the hostname www in the zone a (or b) in the zone xxx in the tld
com. As you haven't created a and b as child zones, you can't use www.a or
www.b. You will need to check with your ISP to see if they will even allow
you to create child zones. If you can't, you may well just have to stick to
use a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com and just forget the www. part. You'll also have
to change the host headers in your IIS configure to a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com

> Also on the web server if i do a nslookup on a.xxx.con and b.xxx.com it
> goes away to some funny address i dont even know - even though i have
> added them in the hosts file and a.xxx.com and the internal address of the
> nic

Nslookup doesn't use the hosts file, it makes DNS requests to your DNS
servers.

a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com should resolve to the addresses you entered in the
DNS configuration. If not, then it's possible that your ISP has some sort of
wildcard handling for unknown host names on the front facing DNS server that
you're enquiring about, and it's not been updated from the DNS settings yet.
Are you sure you did an nslookup against the authorative server for the
xxx.com domain?


> . On the dns settings
> of the isp do i need to change my original address to the address the new
> company has give me.

I'm not sure, your post was confusing about this. What is the IP address? Is
that the new address for www.xxx.com? If so, that needs to be changed in the
DNS settings (although doing that right now will break the existing site),
but will have no impact on the a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com addresses.

This would be so much easier to try and help with if you provided the real
hostnames instead of fake ones, I'd actually be able to help look into the
DNS settings. However, this is also not an IIS problem, it appears to be
purely a DNS one.

Dan

Re: Is this config possible

am 19.07.2006 13:35:01 von hannc

Hi Dan
The correct hostnames are
www.henderson-group.com
www.henderson-group.com/h
www.henderson-group.com/webmail.

i host these all via ip address 62.253.225.166. The new company have give
me an address of 212.250.163.193, but like you say didnt want to change this
yet until i can gurantee that we can acess /h and /webmail sites seperately
somehow.

It is probably dns but i couldnt get it work from inside which i thought
should do but probably is just me.
Thanks
Claire

"Daniel Crichton" wrote:

> hannc wrote on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 04:10:03 -0700:
>
> > Hi Dan
> >
> > Thanks for the quick reply.
> > I went onto the isp to check the dns settings all i have is under dns
> > settings zone - the origianl entry Hostname = www, record type 'A' and ip
> > address (my own public address still). The new ones are Hostname = a,
> > record type 'A', address (my own public address) Hostname = b, record type
> > 'A', address (my own public address). I dont see any options for child
> > zones.
>
> In that case www.a.xxx.com and www.b.xxx.com don't exist. The www part
> denotes the hostname www in the zone a (or b) in the zone xxx in the tld
> com. As you haven't created a and b as child zones, you can't use www.a or
> www.b. You will need to check with your ISP to see if they will even allow
> you to create child zones. If you can't, you may well just have to stick to
> use a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com and just forget the www. part. You'll also have
> to change the host headers in your IIS configure to a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com
>
> > Also on the web server if i do a nslookup on a.xxx.con and b.xxx.com it
> > goes away to some funny address i dont even know - even though i have
> > added them in the hosts file and a.xxx.com and the internal address of the
> > nic
>
> Nslookup doesn't use the hosts file, it makes DNS requests to your DNS
> servers.
>
> a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com should resolve to the addresses you entered in the
> DNS configuration. If not, then it's possible that your ISP has some sort of
> wildcard handling for unknown host names on the front facing DNS server that
> you're enquiring about, and it's not been updated from the DNS settings yet.
> Are you sure you did an nslookup against the authorative server for the
> xxx.com domain?
>
>
> > . On the dns settings
> > of the isp do i need to change my original address to the address the new
> > company has give me.
>
> I'm not sure, your post was confusing about this. What is the IP address? Is
> that the new address for www.xxx.com? If so, that needs to be changed in the
> DNS settings (although doing that right now will break the existing site),
> but will have no impact on the a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com addresses.
>
> This would be so much easier to try and help with if you provided the real
> hostnames instead of fake ones, I'd actually be able to help look into the
> DNS settings. However, this is also not an IIS problem, it appears to be
> purely a DNS one.
>
> Dan
>
>
>

Re: Is this config possible

am 19.07.2006 15:00:02 von hannc

Hi Dan

i got it working without the www. I just have to see if that is acceptable
for my company and if it is then i will forward the main www record to their
ip address.
Thanks again for all your help
Claire

"hannc" wrote:

> Hi Dan
> The correct hostnames are
> www.henderson-group.com
> www.henderson-group.com/h
> www.henderson-group.com/webmail.
>
> i host these all via ip address 62.253.225.166. The new company have give
> me an address of 212.250.163.193, but like you say didnt want to change this
> yet until i can gurantee that we can acess /h and /webmail sites seperately
> somehow.
>
> It is probably dns but i couldnt get it work from inside which i thought
> should do but probably is just me.
> Thanks
> Claire
>
> "Daniel Crichton" wrote:
>
> > hannc wrote on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 04:10:03 -0700:
> >
> > > Hi Dan
> > >
> > > Thanks for the quick reply.
> > > I went onto the isp to check the dns settings all i have is under dns
> > > settings zone - the origianl entry Hostname = www, record type 'A' and ip
> > > address (my own public address still). The new ones are Hostname = a,
> > > record type 'A', address (my own public address) Hostname = b, record type
> > > 'A', address (my own public address). I dont see any options for child
> > > zones.
> >
> > In that case www.a.xxx.com and www.b.xxx.com don't exist. The www part
> > denotes the hostname www in the zone a (or b) in the zone xxx in the tld
> > com. As you haven't created a and b as child zones, you can't use www.a or
> > www.b. You will need to check with your ISP to see if they will even allow
> > you to create child zones. If you can't, you may well just have to stick to
> > use a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com and just forget the www. part. You'll also have
> > to change the host headers in your IIS configure to a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com
> >
> > > Also on the web server if i do a nslookup on a.xxx.con and b.xxx.com it
> > > goes away to some funny address i dont even know - even though i have
> > > added them in the hosts file and a.xxx.com and the internal address of the
> > > nic
> >
> > Nslookup doesn't use the hosts file, it makes DNS requests to your DNS
> > servers.
> >
> > a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com should resolve to the addresses you entered in the
> > DNS configuration. If not, then it's possible that your ISP has some sort of
> > wildcard handling for unknown host names on the front facing DNS server that
> > you're enquiring about, and it's not been updated from the DNS settings yet.
> > Are you sure you did an nslookup against the authorative server for the
> > xxx.com domain?
> >
> >
> > > . On the dns settings
> > > of the isp do i need to change my original address to the address the new
> > > company has give me.
> >
> > I'm not sure, your post was confusing about this. What is the IP address? Is
> > that the new address for www.xxx.com? If so, that needs to be changed in the
> > DNS settings (although doing that right now will break the existing site),
> > but will have no impact on the a.xxx.com and b.xxx.com addresses.
> >
> > This would be so much easier to try and help with if you provided the real
> > hostnames instead of fake ones, I'd actually be able to help look into the
> > DNS settings. However, this is also not an IIS problem, it appears to be
> > purely a DNS one.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> >
> >

Re: Is this config possible

am 19.07.2006 15:09:49 von Daniel Crichton

hannc wrote on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 06:00:02 -0700:

> Hi Dan
>
> i got it working without the www. I just have to see if that is
> acceptable for my company and if it is then i will forward the main www
> record to their ip address.

Good to hear you got it working :)

If it's not acceptable then you're going to have to find a way to convince
your current DNS host for the domain to allow you to create child zones, if
that's the case point out to your company that it'll likely result in site
downtime while the transfer to a new DNS host is made, and various other
possible issues.

How about wwwa.xxx.com and wwwb.xxx.com, or would this be too confusing for
your users? I'm assuming that they'll be going to www.xxx.com and getting
redirected from there anyway, so it's shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Dan