SUMMARY:DNS entry for a specified port.

Rick von Richter (rickv@mwh.com)
Tue, 03 Feb 1998 15:46:19 -0800

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First let me thank the multitudes of people that responded to me. That
is why this list is so great and a lot of the other ones
<you-know-what>. So many people responded that it would take me an hour
to list them all, so I won't (sorry).

My original post:

System is Sparc 5 running Solaris 2.6

I have an electronic paging program that is web based and listens on
port 4002 on a Sparc 5.
So to get to this web page, on our intranet, the user needs to enter the
URL starfire:4002 on their Netscape browser.

What I want to do is create a CNAME entry (or some comparable entry) in
our dns files so the user only has to enter 'epage' as the URL and it
will automatically connect to starfire on port 4002. I tried the
following entries in my forward lookup file but they don't work;

epage.mwh.com. IN CNAME starfire:4002.mwh.com.
epage.mwh.com. IN CNAME starfire.mwh.com:4002

After I make these changes, I run the command 'nslookup epage' and it
returns;
*** dns.mwh.com can't find epage: Non-existent host/domain

Is there a way to do this or do I need to install something like
Netscape's Enterprise server and configure it from there?

The Answer:

This cannot be done via DNS. DNS does not handle ports. I should have
realized this because I know that a colon is an invalid character for a
DNS entry. Now my head hurts from bashing it against the table... duh!!!

Standard HTTP connects on port 80 which is already in use on starfire
which is why I am using port 4002. So to solve this requires a web
server such as Apache (http://www.apache.org) or Netscape Enterprise
Server (http://www.netscape.com). Since a Sparc machine can have
multiple IP addresses, I can assign an ip address for epage.mwh.com in
dns and when it connects, the web server will automatically redirect to
the correct machine AND port. Apache is free (I think) and it is a very
robust web server but since we already have Netscape licenses, I will
set it up there. Thanks to all who responded.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Rick von Richter             |    Phone: 619-552-6222
  Systems/Network Supervisor   |      Fax: 619-552-6213
  Maintenance Warehouse        |    Email: rickv@mwh.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
       Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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