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Date:      Fri, 02 Jun 2000 21:27:27 -0700
From:      Doug Barton <DougB@gorean.org>
To:        webmaster@wmptl.com
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: IP vs CNAME
Message-ID:  <3938892F.FC65E69A@gorean.org>
References:  <393805AD.28ACF39D@wmptl.com>

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Nathan Vidican wrote:
> 
> We are a relatively small ISP looking to grow. We're now starting to do
> virtualhosting for people, and thus far I've been setting up
> virtualhosts using cnames.

	Why are you using CNAME's? You are needlessly doubling the traffic to
your nameservers for every lookup. It's much better to define each host
as an A record that points to the IP address of your vhost'ing server. 

> The thing is, we've currently three almost
> entirely free class C banks of IP addresses, and I was wondering if it
> would be better to use IP based virtualhosting, or stick with our
> current scheme of using cnames to one host?

	Better to keep the IP's for something more useful down the road. With
the current IP situation, it's foolish to waste them if you don't need
to, and would be frowned on by ARIN when it comes time to SWIP.

>         Could anyone explain the performance differences if any involved in
> using IP vs CNAME virtualhosts? 

	There is no connection between name based vhosts and CNAME's. The only
requirement for a name based vhost is that it resolve to the IP of your
server. By not using CNAME's you can have much more flexibility for your
customers down the road because you can offer them custom DNS entries
(like MX records, etc.) that you won't be able to do if you use CNAME's
for their hosts. 

	All that said, there are no performance differences between name and IP
based vhosts. Why would there be? 

Good luck,

Doug
-- 
        "Live free or die"
		- State motto of my ancestral homeland, New Hampshire

	Do YOU Yahoo!?


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