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Date:      Wed, 16 Dec 1998 13:27:10 -0500
From:      Graeme Tait <graeme@echidna.com>
To:        Michiel Boland <boland@diva.nl>
Cc:        Troy Settle <rewt@i-plus.net>, "(ML) FreeBSD ISP" <freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Aliased IPs
Message-ID:  <3677FB7E.7C08@echidna.com>
References:  <Pine.BSF.4.05.9812161718500.29961-100000@carmel.diva.nl>

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Michiel Boland wrote:
> 
> Hi.
> 
> > Hey all,
> >
> > As our web hosting business grows, I'm finding myself aliasing more and
> > more IP addresses to accomodate.  FreeBSD and apache are holding up like
> > champs, but my local routing tables are getting a little big.
> 
> I can't answer your specific problem but I feel I must react to what you
> are doing here. :)
> 
> Personally, I don't use apache, but it should not be a problem in the
> latest apache versions to add virtual hosts that share an IP address with
> other servers. This will save you from the problems you are experiencing
> now + it will also save a lot of valuable IP address space.


I use one host that has well over 10,000 domains served from one machine with 
all mapped to a single IP. It's a great idea in principle, but when you use 
it on any scale, you can run into problems. Here are some of the downsides:

Some search engines won't list sites from this host - they treat the 
multitudinous submissions with multiple hostnames resolving to one IP as 
SPAMming. Others have taken similar action in the past, and had to be 
persuaded to reverse their restriction.

Access control software is often set to ban on IP address. It only takes one 
bad apple to get you banned, and often banning is done on commonplace 
material (like corporations restricting access to sports sites). For 
sensitive categories (like access for children), fairly innocent material can 
lead to banning. In one case Switzerland mandated the banning of the the 
entire server mentioned above from its ISP's, because of one site with racist 
content.

Reverse lookups don't resolve to the correct hostname. Some users, especially 
resellers, are concerned that this happens, as it "blows their cover".

And there's the occasional browser that doesn't pass the host header required 
for this form of virtual hosting.


-- 
Graeme Tait - Echidna


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