Hi, Folks -

Using the IP address will get you to the site, but then you may run into coding that continues to rely on the domain name and not the IP.

RMN is a good example. Using the IP address will perhaps bring you to the Reading Room index page, but what happens when you click a link to read a post? Because the link URLs are coded with the domain name rumormillnews.com, your browser would again seek to have DNS tell it the IP address that goes with that domain name.

There's a way around that but you may not want to do it today, more about why not in a moment.

You have a 'hosts' file on your computer. It's like a static miniature domain name server, and your browser and other Internet programs look there first before trying to contact the global DNS system - so, you can add an entry to that file for the site(s) you want to reach, matching the domain name with the IP address. Then the coded links on the Reading Room index page will be understood by your browser.

But you may not want to add such entries today. :) Here's why:

The value of the global DNS system includes the fact that if a domain moves to a new host server address with a new IP, DNS will be made aware of it but your static hosts file will not.

Thus you might end up mistranslating the domain name to an IP address that no longer applies, and you won't find the site you want, even if global DNS =does= know the new location, because your browser will check the host file first and, receiving an answer (a wrong, outdated one) there, will search no further.

In Linux the hosts file is found at /etc/hosts, should be something similar for Windoze and Mac (Maybe C:\\System\etc\hosts for Windoze? Dunno.) The file should be editable with a plain text editor by the admin/root user.

(You'll find an entry in the file for something like 'localhost' with an IP of 127.0.0.0 or possibly 0.0.0.0 and/or a new IPv6 version of the IP. Leave that entry in the file.)

--hobie

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