Scott wrote on Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:42:29 +0100:
> Hi,
> We provide a shared but customer branded web application and we get
> customer to direct their DNS records at an individual IP. At the
> moment my default site is the only dir that does not use host headers.
> Im just wondering what the advantages / disadvantages are of using an
> IP per URL verus using a shared IP and host headers ?
> Could really do with some expert advice if anyone has the time to post
> some info ?
> Thank you
> Scott
The advantages, off the top of my head, are:
SSL support is easier to add later if you need it (each IP:Port combination
must be unique, and SSL is negotiated before sending the Host header, so a
dedicated IP is the easiest approach unless you want to mess with adding
port numbers to URLs or trying to obtain SSL certs containing multiple
Common Name entries.
Support for applications that don't send the Host: header. While rare in
browsers nowadays, any application that connects to the host and doesn't
send the Host header (ie. written for the HTTP/1.0 specification) will only
be able to retrieve information from the default site if you only have a
single IP with host headers.
Multiple host name support per site without having to map additional host
headers or create redirecting sites. If you have sites on IPs with no host
headers, then your customers can have as many FQDNs point to that IP via DNS
and not have to worry about bogging the metabase down with every possible
host header. eg. one of your customers could point
www.domain1.com,
www.domain2.com, myhost.domain3.com, etc etc to their dedicated IP address,
and they'd all work without those host headers having to be configured in
IIS.
Firewall/router filtering - with dedicated IPs per customer you can use
custom filtering at your router/firewall for those sites which need
restricted access to certain IP ranges, rather than having to include them
in the IIS configuration for the site. However, this might also mean having
to create a way for the application to interface to the firewall/router to
update these addresses, so you might not see this as an advantage to using
the IIS metabase to hold the IPs (which is relatively easy to program
against for making changes). I prefer to try and filter traffic at the
perimeter of my network rather than rely on host or application based
filtering - this reduces the traffic inside the network, and keeps the
resources required for handling requests to a minimum.
Dan
>> Stay informed about: benifits of using individual IP per site V shared IP / hos.. 
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