Problem accessing website using ip address...

[AshleyQuick]

I ordered web hosting and was given an ip address until I transfer the actual domain name to the dns servers. I can ftp into the ip address but I am not able to view even a simple index.html file using internet explorer. In the meantime, it seems as if there would be a way to access the site via the web?

This particular hosting package resides on a Windows server. IIS6 I believe. I also have a package with them on a linux server and was able to access the site using the ip address until the domain name resolved. I simply appended my username associated with the account to the end of the ip address. ie. xx.xx.xx.xx/username. I've tried just about every variation I can think of. The host stated that it isn't possible until the domain name propogates through the system. Can anyone verfify this claim? Other than this, they have been great...no complaints whatsoever.

[Roy Sinclair]

They are essentially correct. With only one IP address pointing to their server IIS "sees" what web site is wanted by looking at the URL and then serves content from that "Virtual" website. IIS works differently than Apache under Linux in that regard.

The good news is that if they've got their end set up already you can jump the gun and start looking at your web site by editing the "hosts" file on your system to link the site name to the IP address they use. IIS doesn't care how that host name is resolved to the IP address, it only cares that it can see it as the domain name in the url.

[AshleyQuick]

Ugh. What do I put in the hosts file?

Thanks Roy

update: I found out they are using a "SHARED IP" Does this screw things up?

[Roy Sinclair]

Look in %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc for a file named "hosts" (%systemroot% usually = c:\windows\).

Save a copy of the file first "just in case" but then, edit it with notepad (not WordPad, MS Word or any other word processing program) and add a line:

domainname xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx # any comments you want

Replace domainname with your domain name and xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the IP address of the hosting side, save the changes and you should be good to go.

SHARED IP is normal, if you had a dedicated ip address then using it would work and you wouldn't need this.

One last note, after your domain name is registered properly be sure you go back and remove that line from the hosts file.

[AshleyQuick]

Well, I was able to view html/gif files and the like. I had a default file - index.asp - in the www root directory. Apparently, you can view an html file but it won't serve .asp files until the domain name is transferred.

Why is this? Is there a standard answer or does this depend from host to host?

Thanks,

Ash

[Roy Sinclair]

If it wasn't processing the ASP file, they have a configuration problem. They haven't enabled ASP for your site yet.