alt.certification.cisco - No www needed in URL

Author

No www needed in URL

Tom Feldsten

2003-01-27, 10:24 am

Wasn't sure about posting here, but think I'll try.

Why is it that when a URL is typed into a browser, there is no need to type
the "www" that used to always have to precede the rest of the domain name?
My guess is that the authoritative DNS for that server will resolve an
address without the www to the www.addresshere.com.

Any other suggestions (or definite answers)?

Thanks

Gary

2003-01-27, 11:24 am

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I once had to set up a url alias in apache doing what you describe, the
section of httpd.conf looked like this;

<VirtualHost www.website.co.uk>
ServerAdmin admin@website.co.uk
ServerName www.website.co.uk
ServerAlias website.co.uk
DocumentRoot /home/website/htdocs
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin /home/website/cgi-bin
TransferLog /home/website/logs/access.log
ErrorLog /home/website/logs/error.log
</VirtualHost>

This will be similar with other webservers i'm sure, you then need to get
dns pointed without the www also.

"Tom Feldsten" <tomfeldsten@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3e355b04$0$155$9a6e19ea@n
ews.newshosting.com...
> Wasn't sure about posting here, but think I'll try.
>
> Why is it that when a URL is typed into a browser, there is no need to
type
> the "www" that used to always have to precede the rest of the domain name?
> My guess is that the authoritative DNS for that server will resolve an
> address without the www to the www.addresshere.com.
>
> Any other suggestions (or definite answers)?
>
> Thanks
>
>

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Pat Colbeck

2003-01-27, 1:23 pm

Hi

The www of a url is just a convention to say this is a HTTP server
address. Most browsers now assume you want to connect to the HTTP port
of a machine when you type a url in unless you tell tehm otherwise so:

http://www.foobar.com is the same as www.foobar.com

Also www.foobar.com is just a text name that gets resolved to an IP
address so as long as both www.foobar.com and foobar.com both resolve to
the same IP address the

http://foobar.com or even just foobar.com will work too.

If you want a different port other than http you have to specify it
either at the end of the url with

ort-number or perhaps if its
something like ftp then tell the browser its ftp by specifying

ftp://url

So mainly its a DNS thing. Back in the mists of time the Internet didnt
mean just HTTP so it made a lot of sence to have a URL indicate what
type of resource it refered to rember URL stands for Universal Resource
Locator not Web Server Address

Pat
--
______________________________
______________________________
____________

Pat Colbeck
Cisco CCIE :2305
E-Mail

colbeck@bashq.org
______________________________
______________________________
____________

Tom Feldsten

2003-01-28, 12:23 am

Yea, that is kinda what I was thinking. What the www really is, of course,
is the target system at the domain referred to in www.domain.com This is
what confused me, and why I thought that the DNS had to know to resolve
domain.com to www.domain.com. And if it's not DNS, then it has gotta be a
web server thing, where the target system is aliased to either
www.domain.com or domain.com, just as someone else pointed out.

Still wish there was someone with the definitive answer.

-Tom-

"Pat Colbeck" <pcolbeck@bashq.org> wrote in message
news:87bs228pdu.fsf@dasterdly.esc.azlan.co.uk...
> Hi
>
> The www of a url is just a convention to say this is a HTTP server
> address. Most browsers now assume you want to connect to the HTTP port
> of a machine when you type a url in unless you tell tehm otherwise so:
>
> http://www.foobar.com is the same as www.foobar.com
>
> Also www.foobar.com is just a text name that gets resolved to an IP
> address so as long as both www.foobar.com and foobar.com both resolve to
> the same IP address the
>
> http://foobar.com or even just foobar.com will work too.
>
> If you want a different port other than http you have to specify it
> either at the end of the url with

ort-number or perhaps if its
> something like ftp then tell the browser its ftp by specifying
>
> ftp://url
>
> So mainly its a DNS thing. Back in the mists of time the Internet didnt
> mean just HTTP so it made a lot of sence to have a URL indicate what
> type of resource it refered to rember URL stands for Universal Resource
> Locator not Web Server Address

>
> Pat
> --
> ______________________________
______________________________
____________
>
> Pat Colbeck
> Cisco CCIE :2305
> E-Mail

colbeck@bashq.org
> ______________________________
______________________________
____________

Hansang Bae

2003-01-28, 8:24 pm

In article <3e3615ab$0$207$9a6e19ea@news.newshosting.com>,
tomfeldsten@hotmail.com says...
> Yea, that is kinda what I was thinking. What the www really is, of course,
> is the target system at the domain referred to in www.domain.com This is
> what confused me, and why I thought that the DNS had to know to resolve
> domain.com to www.domain.com. And if it's not DNS, then it has gotta be a
> web server thing, where the target system is aliased to either
> www.domain.com or domain.com, just as someone else pointed out.
> Still wish there was someone with the definitive answer.

Definitive answer to what? Why don't know need www? Keep in mind how
DNS works. There's a root server that knows about the .com world. Then
there's a server that knows about domain.com world. So if I type in
www.foobar.com, then my dns server tries to resolve it. Since I'm at
foo.com, it asks it's name server how to reach foobar.com. It goes up
the DNS food chain until someone says "hey, I know about foobar.com..."

Also, the name isn't important. It's the port number that counts.

--

hsb

"Somehow I imagined this experience would be more rewarding" Calvin
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