Host IP address

jbarrera · Post by **jbarrera** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:34 am

What does it mean when you can access a webpage by its name but not by its IP address?
I type in.. example.org.. fine, then try its IP address... can't open, tried it from different Pcs and networks... same thing. I want to know how is this accomplished, or if it is a fluke.

Thank You.

psilocybin · Post by **psilocybin** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:38 pm

maybe a shared host, meaning the server requires the hostname in the MIME header to determine what page you're trying to access because it's hosting several pages with different URLs.

jbarrera · Post by **jbarrera** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:14 pm

Great, he is actually hosting more than one page , so that explains it. Thank you,
So , correct me if i'm wrong, I should get the same I.P address for both sites correct?
Thanks Again.

psilocybin · Post by **psilocybin** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:08 pm

jbarrera wrote: So , correct me if i'm wrong, I should get the same I.P address for both sites correct?

most likely, I think.

Post by **Cool_Fire** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 5:29 am

This is actually a pretty common thing. Most hosting providers will have hundreds of websites on one machine, usually all with one or a hand full of IP addresses. If this wouldn't be possible, hosting would be very expensive indeed.

If you're interested, you can see this happen when you request a page. (Using something like wireshark or the live http headers plugin for firefox)

When you request a page, you'll see it's something like this:

Code: Select all

GET /pagename.html HTTP/1.1
HOST: www.sitename.com
(usually some more headers and cookie info)

The domain name gets sent with every request so the server knows which site you're requesting the page from.

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