Setup
On a Windows Server 2008, I have a NIC with 5 IP's associated.
Four of the five IP's are listed in a DNS, the last one is for administration purpose only.
An application bind to each IP on port 80.
When browsing either of the IP's or DNS entries, I have the expected data returned in the browser.
The Problem
When browsing using the computer name (specified in Windows System), things gets weird:
The resulting data seems to be a "random" selection or one of the five applications and sometimes even a mix of data from a few of them.
I wrote "random" as it's a pretty strange kind of static random, that seems to be related to four things:
- The order the applications are started or restarted.
- Changes to the hosts file
- The Computer used to perform the access.
- The Browser used to perform the access.
So using Computer A with Chrome gives one result, and Firefox another result. Also after refresh.
And using Computer B with Chrome gives a third result, and Firefox a fourth result. Also after refresh.
If I restart any of the five applications, or touch the hosts file (whitespace change), the four results above will change.
Research
Currently the only thing I've been able to find that appear to be related, is to specify the computer name in the hosts file for the IP I want it tied to. This does not seem to work, though. (But it lead to the discovery that the hosts file can affect the output).
Question
How can I bind the computer name to one specific IP?