Don't even know what the subject of this should be

XML, Perl, Python, and other languages can be discussed here, even if it isn't PHP (We might forgive you).

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
Wldrumstcs
Forum Commoner
Posts: 98
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2003 8:41 pm

Don't even know what the subject of this should be

Post by Wldrumstcs »

I was wondering what it is called when someone has something like 'www4.domain.com'. What is the 4? A different server or something? Also, how on earth would you go about making something like that? This probably sounds retarded, but I wanted to know after visiting the site to register for the draft (yipee) which had this extra character after the 'www'.
User avatar
Chris Corbyn
Breakbeat Nuttzer
Posts: 13098
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:57 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Post by Chris Corbyn »

Just a subdomain I think...
Wldrumstcs
Forum Commoner
Posts: 98
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2003 8:41 pm

Post by Wldrumstcs »

Are you sure? A subdomain would be like 'www.sub.domain.com'. The extra '4' was in the 'http://www4.domain.com'.
timvw
DevNet Master
Posts: 4897
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:11 pm
Location: Leuven, Belgium

Post by timvw »

all these are valid subdomains of the "example.org" domain

http://www.example.org
www4.example.org
http://www.www4.example.org
www4.www.example.org
im.too.cute.to.be.in.an.example.org
User avatar
Burrito
Spockulator
Posts: 4715
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 8:15 pm
Location: Eden, Utah

Post by Burrito »

just a different host record it is.

WWW a or cname record
WWW4 another a or cname record.
Wldrumstcs
Forum Commoner
Posts: 98
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2003 8:41 pm

Post by Wldrumstcs »

So how would you create one? Not that I would, but I am just curious.
timvw
DevNet Master
Posts: 4897
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:11 pm
Location: Leuven, Belgium

Post by timvw »

Code: Select all

timvw@madoka:~$ dig www4.domain.com

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www4.domain.com.        3600    IN      A       69.7.239.163
So that is how it is created..

For your own hosts you problably need to edit the zone file, setup a virtual host in apache and you're ready to go too..
User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Post by onion2k »

It's a subdomain as everyone has said so far, but it usually indicates that there's some sort of loadbalancing going on.

If a site gets a HUGE amount of traffic it can be too much for a single webserver to handle. So you get a bunch of servers and put a thing called a 'load balancer' between them and the internet. When a user requests a page the load balancer checks which server has had the fewest requests so far, and forwards the user to that server.

Setting up a site in this way is difficult because things like sessions only work if you go back to the server that processed your session to start with. One easy way to make sure you return to the right server is to name them all differently using subdomains .. www1, www2, www3 and so on.

The web server side of things is a peice of <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> compared to load balancing and replicating database servers.
Post Reply