Web Clients Cannot Resolve Name by Domain Name Only

• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

Your web clients can access your web server using the fully qualified domain name (FQDN), but if they attempt to access it using only the domain name, the attempt fails.

For example, if your web server's host name is www.mydomain.com, then your clients are able to use http://www.mydomain.com to reach your web site, but they cannot access the web site using http://mydomain.com.

CAUSE

There is no A record in your Domain Name Service (DNS) zone to resolve the domain name to an IP address.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this issue, you will need to create an A record in the DNS zone by performing the following steps:

1. In DNS Manager, right-click the desired zone, and click New Record.

2. Leave the Host Name box blank.

3. Enter a.b.c.d in the Host IP Address box, where a.b.c.d is the IP address of your web server.

4. Click Create Associated PTR Record to clear this option's check box.

5. Click OK, click DNS, and then click Update Server Data Files.

6. Quit DNS Manager and restart your server.