Member Avatar for inthespotlite82

Hey All-

Can anyone point me in the right direction regarding how to setup a DNS entry to point to an intranet site using only a one-word address?

I have a W2K8-R2 domain network setup, with a Microsoft DNS server running on the network.

I would like to be able to type in and have it resolve to I tried to setup a CNAME and pointed it to the FQDN of the domain computer. This did not work.

Separately, I setup an A record for camera, which points to the IP address of our video camera server. When you type camera into a web browser and hit enter, sometimes you are forwarded to the proper location (internal IP address) while other times you are sent to a search engine result page. (I'd also like to figure out why these results vary so much)

Any help would be appreciated!

--Thanks
Joe

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Short, practical summary for : DNS maps names to IP addresses, not to URL paths. To make http://home show the content currently at http://domainComputer1/home the name home must resolve to domainComputer1's IP and the web server must be configured to serve or redirect requests that arrive with a Host header of home.

Recommended approach:

  • Create an A (host) record named home in the internal forward lookup zone for the AD domain and point it to domainComputer1's IP. Prefer an A record over a CNAME for servers that participate in Active Directory or use Kerberos to avoid SPN/auth issues.
  • On domainComputer1 (IIS on W2K8-R2) add a site binding (host header) for home and either set that site's physical path to the /home folder or add an HTTP redirect from the site root to /home. If the intent is to keep http://home visible while serving the content, the host-header/site root method is required; DNS cannot encode a path.

Troubleshooting tips:

  • From a client check ipconfig /all (DNS servers and DNS suffix), then nslookup home (and nslookup home.<yourdomain>) to confirm resolution. Use ipconfig /flushdns to clear cache.
  • If nslookup returns the correct IP but the browser shows a search results page, the browser is treating a single-label entry as a search term—typing http://home/ (or adding a trailing slash) forces navigation. Inconsistent behaviour can also come from LLMNR/NetBIOS fallbacks or from clients using external DNS. A local hosts file (as noted) will always win DNS but is only a stopgap.

Final note: single-label names are brittle in modern networks and can interfere with Kerberos, GPOs and browser heuristics. Prefer home.yourdomain or deploy a DNS suffix/search list via DHCP/GPO to ensure consistent resolution (as hinted).

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Member Avatar for JorgeM

Hello Joe- let's start with the first issue. DNS can of map a host name to a URL. Creating Ruth's host record or cname record that points to the web server is correct. Then, on the web server, you can make the web sites home directory map to that home folder or alternativly create a redirect. Also keep in mind that DNS is all about fully qualified host names. So while you may type a single label name in the address bar, your computer's OS will append the DNS suffix that's configured to try to resolve that unqualified name.

For the second, its likely to the DNS suffix situation I mentioned.

Edited by JorgeM
Member Avatar for CimmerianX

You could do this with a local HOSTS file or LMHOSTS file running on the client machine. That would certainly work with the name style you want. BIG downside is that you need to maintain it on each PC or use an include to pull in the file from a central server.

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Creating Ruth's host record...

I'm on a mobile. Ruth's is an autocomplete. Sorry a out that.

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