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Inconsistent URL to access website

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by mccjan

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I have inherited the following problem, and appreciate at least a direction as to isolate what the cause could be. The server in question is NT4 SP 6 with IIS4 and Site Server 3.0

1. The DNS has defined the FQDN host.domain.com. If I were to pingfrom a remote site, it resolves.

2. If I try to access from intranet http://host.domain.com/test.htm, I can see on my browser gets redirected to http://host/test.htm, and the page appears.

3. If I access from internet http://host.domain.com/test.htm, I can see at the bottom of the browser it is Finding: host, and then page not found, the message would say something like DNS error, server not found.

4. In that server, Site Server is installed. So if I access from both intranet or internet http://host.domain.com/SiteServer/, the page would appear as http://host.domain.com/SiteServer/, no redirection. SiteServer is a virtual directory under the default web site.

5. There are other virtual directories under the same default website. But if I try to access http://host.domain.com//test.htm, I will always see either page appearing as http://host//test.htm (in intranet), or page not found (internet).

6. The website is configured to ip unassigned, no host header defined. But I don't think that is the problem. If so, by right /SiteServer/ should be having problem too. I did try putting in host header, the result is no page could be seen. Since it's a production system I had to quickly unwind it to what it used to be.

7. The site is a proprietary document management application. Since we inherited it, the code and site server settings are very much a black box to us right now.

Appreciate clue as to where the binding to hostname could have occured.The more specific the better. We need to internet-enable it.

Thank you

2 replies

by maz1980

It think the problem was on the IIS access setting. Check the web site properties on IIS Service Manager. Have you allow access to the web site from another location except localhost.

by mccjan

Additional information:

1. No "deny" for any ip or user. The access permission setting is to permit all.

2. I have found it may lie with setting within the Site Server P&M, because the website uses Membership Authentication and not IIS authentication.

3. Currently in Membership Authentication, the setting is to use "HTML form authentication". The reason why http://host.domain.com/SiteServer works is because the virtual directory SiteServer was set to both Anonymous and HTML form authentication. I did an experiment using IISHelp, and true enough, without "anonymous", it fails, with "anonymous" it works. But I am afraid just adding "anonymous" is not an alternative I can use.

4. A second site was set up on the same machine, but it uses IIS Authentication. That one has no problem accessing from the internet.

5. I checked Site Server setting, and found that the DNS name setting for the server was set to just "host". Would that be the only place that's causing the problem?

6. Is there any way to modify it without re-setting up the entire Site Server since there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to change it.

Appreciate all who answers. I will come back and rate all the answers in one shot within another 3 weeks(points given by proportion that contribute to solving the problem). Appreciate any advice. I realize at the end of the day it could even go into code level troubleshooting which is not easy in this type of bulletin board so I will not be in a hurryto reject any suggestions.

Many thanks ...

Charlene

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