HTTP forwarding, based upon host header

  • Thread starter Thread starter john lemon
  • Start date Start date
J

john lemon

I've got a Watchguard X50 Edge hardware firewall connected to the internet
via T1.

Inside the firewall, I've got 2 web servers, Windows 2000 Server.

The X50 has the capability to be associated to ONLY ONE external IP address
(argh...).

I can easily forward all incoming PORT 80 traffic to either one of the web
servers.

However, I need to be able to forward SOME incoming traffic to Web Server
#1, and SOME incoming traffic to Web Server #2. Of course, this would be
determined by the host header information.

So, xyz.com and abc.com are on Server #1. def.com and ghi.com are on Server
#2.

Can anyone suggest a free or cheap software solution to this problem?

Thank you.

John
 
Oh... don't forget to make sure you configure your external DNS for the new
site. Each host header needs a record.

-Frank
 
I am familiar with hosting multiple web sites on a single server using a
single IP address.

However this situation is a little different.

I have two web servers on the same 192.168.111.x network.

Server #1: 192.168.111.1 - xyz.com and abc.com
Server #2: 192.168.111.2 - def.com and ghi.com

External DNS is configured so that the WWW hosts for these 4 domains point
to 207.56.34.12 (for example).

207.56.34.12 is the hardware firewall.

The firewall port forwarding is set up to forward all PORT 80 requests to
192.168.111.1.

xyz.com and abc.com are fully accessible from the outside world.

But back to my original question, how can I access www.def.com and
www.ghi.com from the outside world ?
 
I am familiar with hosting multiple web sites on a single server using a
single IP address.

However this situation is a little different.

I have two web servers on the same 192.168.111.x network.

Server #1: 192.168.111.1 - xyz.com and abc.com
Server #2: 192.168.111.2 - def.com and ghi.com

External DNS is configured so that the WWW hosts for these 4 domains point
to 207.56.34.12 (for example).

207.56.34.12 is the hardware firewall.

The firewall port forwarding is set up to forward all PORT 80 requests to
192.168.111.1.

xyz.com and abc.com are fully accessible from the outside world.

But back to my original question, how can I access www.def.com and
www.ghi.com from the outside world ?
I don't know about IIS but Apache web server allows virtual name-based
virtual hosts to be on different physical servers. Maybe IIS does also.
 
why do you need the domains split on the two servers, is it due performance,
space, or access to local components? that answer will also tell you how to
solve your problem.

one option would be to use network load balancing, this would give both
servers a shared ip address, problem with this is that both servers would
get hits for all 4 sites,
but if you can set up all 4 sites on both servers, no problems, remember you
can set up a site with the files located on another server if needed, any
access to sql or similair should be possible if the website is programmed
correctly using the appropriate servers name, instead of localhost or
127.0.0.1

second option, you can use reverse proxy (ISA server), your web users, would
all hit your proxy server, wich will then retrieve the content from your
internal servers, depending on the domain name the web client is requesting.
have a look under microsofts isa server documentation for more details
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...se/proddocs/en-us/isadocs/cmt_cnfpublish.mspx

third option find a firewall able to recognize the host names, and direct
traffic depending on it.
 
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