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Tod Brannen
11-Apr-2005, 04:19 PM
Greetings,
I saw the reply to Ian by Knut and I have a similar question. I have
limited experience with WebApp, so forgive me if this is common knowledge.
We have a client that we want to create a web app and host it on our
webappserver. I have the basic one page data entry wbo done and tested to
work in our office.

The big question is, can the user access the webapplication without having a
www address, but just use the IP to our webapp server? If so, what are the
up side and down side of doing it this way?

Thanks,

Tod Brannen

Ian Telfer
11-Apr-2005, 06:05 PM
Tod,

When we start development and want the client to be able to look at the
site, we usually put it into our server and have it addressed as
ourdomain/theirname/login.asp. This tells IIS to look in the virtual
directory 'theirname' and run login.asp.

Its a very quick and easy way to get something up to show.

Ian

Tod Brannen wrote:
> Greetings,
> I saw the reply to Ian by Knut and I have a similar question. I have
> limited experience with WebApp, so forgive me if this is common knowledge.
> We have a client that we want to create a web app and host it on our
> webappserver. I have the basic one page data entry wbo done and tested to
> work in our office.
>
> The big question is, can the user access the webapplication without having a
> www address, but just use the IP to our webapp server? If so, what are the
> up side and down side of doing it this way?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tod Brannen
>
>

Knut Sparhell
11-Apr-2005, 08:37 PM
Tod Brannen wrote:

> We have a client that we want to create a web app and host it on our
> webappserver. I have the basic one page data entry wbo done and tested to
> work in our office.
>
> The big question is, can the user access the webapplication without having a
> www address, but just use the IP to our webapp server?

Assuming you mean access through Internet:

Yes. But I never recommend using IP adresses directly because setting
up a globally accessible host name is easy and free. See below.

> If so, what are the
> up side and down side of doing it this way?

If the IP changes, then the address becomes invalid or points to another
server. If you distribute an address it will be saved somewhere and
tried again later and confusion may arise.

You may easily get a DNS host name for any Internet exposed computer
using a dynamic DNS provider like www.dyndns.org. Create a new account,
download and install the client and you are up in the DNS (DDNS -
dynamic DNS).

My development computer has host name sparhell.dyndns.org og for testing
"nightly builds" of my applications I can direct my customers to a
virtual folder at that address.

If the webapp server is behind a firewall router (using network address
translation) then you must direct incoming http/port 80 to the local IP,
or define the server IP as being DMZ, in your router setup.

Many modern routers av DDNS client built-in. If so, no need to install
any software client to use DDNS. Just enable it and add service
address, account name and password for the DDNS service. Works great
for dynamic IPs, too.

For a more permanent service I recommend using regular DNS. If you have
a domain, contact your provider and find a suitable host name. It
doesn't have to start with "www". "www" may be in use, so choose
"webapp.mydomain.com" or the like. But as I said, this is not necessary
for "ad hoc" use.

----------
If the client is inside a LAN, then the local computer name may be used.
Just replace "localhost" with your computer name.

--
Knut Sparhell, Norway