Only Mac give "server not found" error

[Guest]

We have a Windows 2000 Server running with IIS 5 for our Intranet, and users are accessing the site with the server name - http://servername/

Problem: Windows browser is able to access the site fine, but Mac browser gives a "server not found" error. Looks like "servername" cannot not be resolved into its IP address. When IP address of "servername" is used, the site becomes accessible. I found a way to modify the Hosts in Mac OS so that "servername" can be resolved into its IP, but we can't tell every Mac user to configure their machines. There's gotta be a way to correct this on the server side... This happens to both OS 8/9 and OS X Jaguar. Why only Mac OS can't resolve the name? Any ideas would be appreciated!!

 

[grumbledook]

We have a Windows 2000 Server running with IIS 5 for our Intranet, and users
are accessing the site with the server name - http://servername/ Problem:
Windows browser is able to access the site fine, but Mac browser gives a
"server not found" error. Looks like "servername" cannot not be resolved
into its IP address. When IP address of "servername" is used, the site
becomes accessible. I found a way to modify the Hosts in Mac OS so that
"servername" can be resolved into its IP, but we can't tell every Mac user
to configure their machines. There's gotta be a way to correct this on the
server side... This happens to both OS 8/9 and OS X Jaguar. Why only Mac OS
can't resolve the name? Any ideas would be appreciated!!

First thought would be to check the search domain(s) in the network settings.
Most Wintel boxes when on a domain will automatically put the domain in if
you put a hostname in a browser, eg (hostname is webserver ... so
http://webserver then becomes http://webserver.domain.com)

You can also do this with Macs, but you need to enter the search domains, and
the order they are to be checked, in the TCP/IP settings in OS 8/9 and in the
network settings in OSX.

If I remember correctly you can propagate this via workgroup manager /
macintosh manager ... I don't use OSX Server so can't help with that ....

Other things to check are DNS (make sure you can perform correct lookups and
reverse lookups for both the hostname and FQDN), and whether your DNS servers
and allowing you to make requests against them from a machine that is not a
member of the domain.


I hope this helps.

Tony Sheppard