Windows Server Core IP Configuration, Part 2

Posted by Bink on on July 18 2008, 1:10 PM with no comments

In the first part of this series I explored the basic settings of IPv4 on Server Core installations. Now it's time to dive a little deeper and explore the tabs behind the Advanced button on the General tab of the Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) Properties screen.

I mentioned being able to let IP traffic flow isn't very useful when you don't have proper name resolution. The time were we knew and could remember each others IP addresses is long gone and since then several solutions have been invented and used to translate names in IPv4 addresses to access resources using common names.

In this part you'll find how to:

The Hosts file

Traditionally Windows contains a hosts file. You can use this file as a table to translate hostnames to IP addresses. The Hosts file is actually the oldest known method of name resolution in the computing history and was first used in the early DARPA days. (People actually exchanged hosts files back then!)

Nowadays you can still use the Hosts file to do some basic name resolution. I find it's specifically helpful in certain test scenario's. One example would be to override the information from other name resolution protocols (like DNS) in cases with multiple host headers in IIS.

Note:
The information in the Hosts file affect name resolution for the whole system, not just one Networking connection and can contain more than mere IPv4 addresses.

Modifying the hosts file

To modify your hosts file in Server Core simply type:

notepad.exe C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

At the bottom of the document you can add hostnames, domainnames and other names you want to have translated to specific IP addresses, separated by a tab. When you're done simply safe the file.

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