what does the "www2" mean in internet address?

[jjyiz28]

for example, this link below.

http://www2.packetstorm.org:443/

 

[Fuzznuts]

its a host address in the domain packetstorm.org is the name of the domain. the www2 before it is simply a host record in the packetstorm.org domain.

DNS names work from right to left host being the right most entry. eg

www.www2.packetstorm.org

would be a www. host in the www2 subdomain of the packetstorm.org parent domain. the hosts can be anything www. etc is simply for clarity sakes as most people will always look for a www. in a domain name.

does this help?

edited for spelling

 

[jjyiz28]

ohhhhh... that makes sense. www2 is the cname for the webserver

ok, so a webserver can take any name???

ie) "http://support.microsoft.com" , the webserver name is "support"?? rather than the more common "www"?? correct?

 

[Haden]

yes correct.
www(2..n) is usually used to note that server is mirror of main www.

 

[stephbu]

Actually the webserver name is TKxxxxxxxx or something similar (MS has a really mangled machine naming convention that you don't really want to know about) The DNS entry is totally unconnected to the physical server name. DNS entry is a map of a name to an IP address.

So I could register in the DNS foo.microsoft.com and bar.microsoft.com and point both of them at the same IP for example. Why would I do this? Well I could host two different websites on the same machine then use host headers to differentiate between the requests.

In this case the support.microsoft.com's DNS record points to a virtual IP address in Akamai edge-network. This maps your request to one of Akamai's servers nearest you.

 

[Fuzznuts]

Originally posted by: stephbu
Actually the webserver name is TKxxxxxxxx or something similar (MS has a really mangled machine naming convention that you don't really want to know about) The DNS entry is totally unconnected to the physical server name. DNS entry is a map of a name to an IP address.

So I could register in the DNS foo.microsoft.com and bar.microsoft.com and point both of them at the same IP for example. Why would I do this? Well I could host two different websites on the same machine then use host headers to differentiate between the requests.

In this case the support.microsoft.com's DNS record points to a virtual IP address in Akamai edge-network. This maps your request to one of Akamai's servers nearest you.

what he said applies a host record or A record can be name.ip.co.uk then you could have either multiple A records pointing to that address or CNAMES which map names to names ie name2.ip.co.uk maps to name.ip.co.uk.

it does of course get a bit deeper than that but hose basics should see you well on your way

 

[spidey07]

always use one and only one A record for a host and that should be the true host name of the machine.

Everythingelse should be a CNAME.

But like everyone's said. Its just a name.

 

[martind1]

it is all semantics. dont worry about it.

it couldbe bobsmachine.yahoo.com. don't matter.

 

[WannaFly]

Originally posted by: Haden
yes correct.
www(2..n) is usually used to note that server is mirror of main www.

Actually, more commonly it is load-balancing webservers.