Windows Server 2012 R2 Administrator Cookbook

Using host headers to manage multiple websites on a single IP address

When setting up a website inside IIS, the most straightforward approach is certainly to utilize an individual IP address for each website that you will be running. It is common to run more than one site on a single web server, and so this sometimes means that your web servers have numerous IP addresses configured on them. However, sometimes this is not possible. For example, you may be working on a web server that is internet-facing and there is a restriction on the amount of available public IP addresses that can be used. In this case, you may run across the need to host multiple websites on a single IP address.

This is where host headers come into play. Host headers can be ...