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Naming Web Sites

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

A server running IIS can host multiple Web sites. Each Web site is said to be running on a virtual server. Each virtual Web site has a descriptive name and can support one or more host header names. Host header names make it possible to host multiple domain names on one computer.

You can have multiple server certificates, multiple IP addresses, and multiple SSL ports per server.

Important

You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to perform the following procedure or procedures. As a security best practice, log on to your computer by using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the runas command to run IIS Manager as an administrator. At a command prompt, type runas /user:Administrative_AccountName "mmc %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc".

Procedures

To name a Web site

  1. In IIS Manager, expand the local computer, right-click the Web site, and click Properties.

  2. On the Web Site tab, in the Description box, type a descriptive name for the site, and then click OK.

To assign a host header name to a Web Site

  1. Ask your system administrator to add the new site name mapping for your static IP address to your name resolution system (typically DNS).

  2. In IIS Manager, right-click the Web site to which you which you want to assign a host header name, and click Properties.

  3. On the Web Site tab, click Advanced.

  4. Click Add to assign a host header name, IP address, and port for the Web site.

  5. Click OK twice.

Note

If you attempt to create a host header for a Web site containing a Unicode character, you will receive an error indicating that you must only use standard characters. This is because the Domain Name System (DNS) standard does not recognize Unicode characters.