Windows 2000 Quick Fixes

Host multiple sites on one IP address

Perhaps you’re setting up a Windows 2000 Server computer to use as a web server, and need to know how to host multiple sites with just one IP address. With IP addresses at a premium, this type of problem is common. You can use one of two methods to host multiple sites on a single IP address: use host headers or use varying TCP ports.

Unfortunately, Windows 2000 Professional only supports the single default site—you can’t host multiple sites under Windows 2000 Professional. (But you can simulate it, as explained later, in Section 11.2.3).

Use host headers

Each site has three properties that help locate the site: IP address, host header, and TCP port. On a given server, at least one of these three must be unique. The other two can be the same from one site to another. The host header is the domain portion of the URL, such as www.stuffyourhead.com. The browser passes the host header to the server, which in turn can determine which site to serve up based on that host header.

So you can host multiple sites on the same server using a single IP address as long as the host headers are unique. Browsers that support HTTP 1.1 support host headers, which means that most browsers in use today do support host headers (including Internet Explorer 3.0 and Netscape 2.0 and later).

Here’s how to configure a site’s host header:

1. Open the IIS console from the Administrative Tools folder, right-click the site, and choose Properties.

2. On the Web Site tab, click Advanced ...