Can someone explain whats the difference between having the hostname ie server1.domainname.com

vs. the domainname.com


What purpose does the domain name serve in this case?


Thanks.

The Domain name is how people find you. The hostname is the name of the server in your domain, there could be several servers.

Lets put it in lamen terms, say I told you to go to my bedroom and get the keys off my dresser, and you've never been to my bedroom. My bedroom is like my DOMAIN Name, I give you instructions on how to find it. After you find the Domain or bedroom in this case, you have to find the server or in this case the dresser to get the keys. I have at my bedroom door a router that looks at your request for my keys and directs you to the dresser. Had you been looking for my wallet, the router would direct you to the nightstand, another server in my domain(bedroom).

Your hostname identifies the server where the information resides in your domain or which server contains the application the user is trying to get to. Every server has a hostname. It's just most of the time the end user never see's it. Domain names are used to identify the company or a higher level than an individual server. Most domains only have a single server and a lot of servers house multiple domains, so ya, it can be confusing. Let's not even muddy the waters here and talk about sub domains, LOL.

The domain name is like "rackshack.com" - which has a whole boatload of servers I bet, and I am not talking about the ones we rent. They proably have one for the main site, another one for the forum, and another for signups, etc, etc, etc.

Hope that helps some, probably just confused you more, but I tried.

so my domain name is virtuahost.net ...does it matter what i put infront for the hostname like host.virtuahost.net would be fine???

Thanks Stormy, that was my gut feeling its like in a microsoft network where you have a domain and server names.

jayp6969

The hostname does not really matter, because your name servers point the traffic for your domain to the ip of the host, but then again it does matter, because nameservers also points to the hostname. The domain is like the block you live on, and the hostname is your house's address, and so is the IP address. In order to get to the exact house on your block, I have to know the house number or the IP address.

Do this, open a dos promt on your windows machine that is connected to the internet and do a nslookup of your IP address and then do an nslookup of your hostname.domain_name.com (or net, etc.. whatever your ttl is).


[PHP]
O:>nslookup secure.mrstormynights.com
Server: ns6.attbi.com
Address: 63.240.76.4

Name: secure.mrstormynights.com
Address: 207.44.130.73


O:>nslookup 207.44.130.73
Server: ns6.attbi.com
Address: 63.240.76.4

Name: ns1.mrstormynights.com
Address: 207.44.130.73

[/PHP]

Notice the IP resolves to my name server, but my hostname.domain.com also resolves to the same address which is the primary address for the machine and also for my name server.

BTW, any of your virtual servers running on named based accounts will also resolve to the IP address of your host machine.

(fyi, I thought about changing the ip addresses above for security reasons, but any hacker worth his weight can just lookup the info for him or herself anyway, so why bother)