🚀 go-pugleaf

For virtual domain web hosting my ISP just switched over to shared IP's
via HTTP_HOST (see below if you don't know what this is).   I complained,
since I have only seen this used on very low cost providers, like icom.com and
webcom.com.  But my ISP claims the following:

> In accordance with InterNIC, ARIN, MCI and UUnet policies, we have
> eliminated the use of IP's for virtual web sites permanently.
>
> Browsers supporting only HTTPD v1.0 will indeed see the wrong web
> site, for the reason you cited above.  Updated browsers have been
> available for far more than one year supporting HTTP_HOST.
>
> The use of IP's for virtual web sites is very heavily discouraged
> for many reasons, and would inhibit our growth and our customers in
> far more drastic ways than having to use a current browser.


However it's my understanding that the IP situation is going to be solved by
adding more digits eeeeventuallly.  I have not heard of these "policies" at
ARIN or INTERNIC, although I understand the commercial backbones might
encourage IP sharing, and least for their more economical customers!  I see
from the ARIN template (http://www.arin.net/templates/isptemplate.txt) that
virtual domain IP's are considered "reserved" rather than "assigned," but does
this effect the utilization rate???

Is my ISP feeding me a load of nonsense?


-------
FYI: Shared IP's via HTTP_HOST: See http://www.cyberhost.net, which links to
all the web pages sharing this IP, such as http://www.bcr-net.com.  If you
type http://www.bcr-net.com into a primtive browser, like Netscape 1 or an old
Mosaic, you get the http://www.cyberhost.net page and have to click on the
page you want.  But if you use a modern browser then http://www.bcr-net.com
goes where it should.  (This is icom.com's way of handling old browsers;
webcom.com uses a slightly different scheme.  Both are based on the HTTP_HOST
variable, but webcom uses a HTTP_REFERER trick for all but the most naive
browser.)

Another problem: I suspect many search engine spiders do not set HTTP_HOST.  I
know it used to impossible to submit to Link Exchange a banner sitting on a
shared IP virtual host, but they fixed that.

C.Kitchin
email: kitchin__no@spp*am.comclin.neyt
[The ISP I'm complaining about is in neither of the email addresses here.]

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