Help: Host files for different user profiles?

[Brent]

Hi Guru's,

We are trying to set up a Windows XP server and host through a screen
scraper (tarantella) so when a user logs in, we want to redirect a host entry
called "demohost" to a paired machine. We want to set the host entry using a
login script.

An example, we have 3 users, each logging in separately and concurrently.
If they go to the command prompt and type ping demohost, they should be
pointing to different IP addresses.

I know that there is one host file in the /etc/hosts directory, however, is
there a way to either set specific host entries as variables or have a
user/session variable to tell them to use a specific host file?

Thanks!

 

[Steve Winograd [MS-MVP]]

Hi Guru's,

We are trying to set up a Windows XP server and host through a screen
scraper (tarantella) so when a user logs in, we want to redirect a host entry
called "demohost" to a paired machine. We want to set the host entry using a
login script.

An example, we have 3 users, each logging in separately and concurrently.
If they go to the command prompt and type ping demohost, they should be
pointing to different IP addresses.

I know that there is one host file in the /etc/hosts directory, however, is
there a way to either set specific host entries as variables or have a
user/session variable to tell them to use a specific host file?

Thanks!

If the users were logged in one at a time, the login script could
rewrite the /etc/hosts file with information for the current user.

I don't know of any way to do what you want for concurrent logins.

How will each user access its paired machine? There might be a way to
configure that access.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Desktop Experience)

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

 

[Brent]

Thanks Steve. Turns out I asked in the wrong forum, but perhaps you know...I
am using Windows 2003 Server and not XP. Not sure if that changes anything.
The problem is that the paired machine has is serving up web pages with image
references to 'demohost' which if the host demohost was set to the paired
machine ip, it would work.

We are hoping to do this rather than do a search and replace across hundreds
of references every time we build a machine. Also, we are having other
issues. The only way I can think of working around this is virtualizing each
windows instance to get it's own ip, however, we were hoping to leverage a
single windows server installation to accomplish this. I have our tech guys
investigating more options, however, a solution to having a single server
acting like a "Multi-Tenant" enviornment is desired.

Thanks again for the feedback!
-Brent

 

[Steve Winograd [MS-MVP]]

Thanks Steve. Turns out I asked in the wrong forum, but perhaps you know...I
am using Windows 2003 Server and not XP. Not sure if that changes anything.
The problem is that the paired machine has is serving up web pages with image
references to 'demohost' which if the host demohost was set to the paired
machine ip, it would work.

We are hoping to do this rather than do a search and replace across hundreds
of references every time we build a machine. Also, we are having other
issues. The only way I can think of working around this is virtualizing each
windows instance to get it's own ip, however, we were hoping to leverage a
single windows server installation to accomplish this. I have our tech guys
investigating more options, however, a solution to having a single server
acting like a "Multi-Tenant" enviornment is desired.

Thanks again for the feedback!
-Brent

You're welcome, Brent. I'm not familiar with Windows 2003 Server. If
you don't get an answer here, I recommend posting your question in a
Windows Server or scripting newsgroup.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Desktop Experience)

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com