Help with url problems

[andi_kam 0]

hey,

will use neowin for this example..

for neowin you log on to www.neowin.net which takes you to their hosts address that is likely to be something much longer or even an ip address.

How do you do it so that the page or folder forums... shows up as www.neowin.net/forums and not just the hosts name or ip and then /forums..

basic stuff i know,

thanks in advance

[+Human.Online 8,707]

You will probably find that www.neowin.net exists as www.neowin.net - not something longer. I think you are talking about redirection here (cheap ISP and domain packages use it).

Also, it's more than likely that the forums ARE located at www.neowin.net/forums.

[Colin-uk 135]

url masking?

i would say this is standard on most hosts (but i think neowin has a dedicated server?)

or i could be completly wrong lol :ermm:

[metal_dragen 30]

DNS records and a webserver control this together. The DNS records say that this name (say, as in your example www.neowin.net) is located at this IP address (say 123.456.789.0). So any request for www.neowin.net gets transferred to that IP. This is where the webserver software comes and takes over. In the configuration of the webserver (in the case of a non-dedicated, shared server), it has definitions of Virtual Hosts. These are similar to the DNS records, but they say that a request for neowin.net is located in this directory on the webserver (say, /home/neowin/www/). So, a request for www.neowin.net/forums/ after it's all said and done would get transferred to IP 123.456.789.0 which would then translate that to be located at /home/neowin/www/forums/ on the server.