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sperodev

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can't browse to non-default website on intranet

Newbie question. I have a home lan set up, with Windows server 2008 as domain controller with IIS 7.0, and the client computer running XP Pro.

On the client, I can browse to the default web site (which has a static IP 192.168.0.6) with no problem, but after I created a non-default web site, with IP = 'All UnAssigned', I ran into problems. I can view the default web page of the non-default web site as localhost, on the server machine (by hitting 'Browse Web Site in the IIS manager). However, on the client computer, I don't even know what URL to punch in.

When I tried using the same IP as the default web site, but set the port to :81, I got an HTTP 400 error when trying to view the default file, index.html. (after opening the firewall to port 81).

I'm trying to figure out how to make the port method work, but I'd also like to know another way. I think I saw something about exceptions and headers.
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varungd

Use http://192.168.0.6:81instead of  http://localhost  and also remove 'All UnAssigned' and give the IP address.
 
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Pugglewuggle
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Also, with the port option, all pages must be configured with relative path names (i.e., all paths in the page start with a / that reference the root of the site - for example on www.stuff.com/heythere/what.jpg will look like /heythere/what.jpg in the code).
Then, just set the site's default port to whatever you want and access it with https://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>
Cheers!
Oops! I meant:
http://<SERVER_IP>:<PORT>
Cheers!
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That is unneccesary complication.
In all development environments I've worked in sites have been developed with the port based method.
If you have more than one computer you must replicate hosts to each one and keep them synced when they change.
With the IP/port you don't need to do any of this - just access the site as I detailed above.
Cheers!
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I'm trying using hosts files, host headers, and the same port (80), for now. I only have 2 machines I'm concerned about right now, 1 server and 1 client.

The default web site works ok, but the additional web site, dev1, does not work.  I get a message "DNS Error - Server cannot be found".

Here is my hosts file on the client:

192.168.0.6   lenovo
192.168.0.6   dev1

AFAIK, there is nothing more to setting up a host header in IIS than entering the 'Host name' setting in the 'Edit Site Binding' dialog box. Is this correct?

I entered lenovo and dev1 for 'Host name', respectively. I don't think I need dev1.com, or something else more like a normal domain name, do I?

Can somebody confirm or disconfirm that I need to tweak the DNS server to make this work?
Oops. Looks like lenovo worked because it was in the Active Directory (just learning that, too, so please bear with me). I changed lenovo to lenovows in both the host file and the 'Host name' setting on the server, and now that doesn't work, either.
I added an A record in the DNS server for dev1, which got that working. However, doing the same thing for lenovows did not get that working. I've now put back the lenovows references to lenovo. I am going to try with another non-default web site, dev2.
dev2 works, though it took a few minutes before the page would come up. I'm still not sure whether or not this has to do with adding records to the DNS Server. (Even after I added a DNS A record for dev2, it still was quite a few minutes before the dev2 web page would come up on the client browser).

Assuming it's the DNS, doesn anybody know how to 'kick' it, so that it uses it's updated information, immediately?

I'm also wondering if a DNS update lag might be to blame for lenovows not working on the default web site.