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I'm working in a private company which has several internal web portals or applications hosted on LAN. So whenever i type "fp/" in the address bar of any browser , it is automatically redirects me to a portal page which is "http://apps/FPMS/aspx/FPMSHome.aspx". Are they using DNS to match the URL for redirecting.? If yes , how can i find other shortcuts like this one.? If no , what is happening behind the screen ? please clarify this :)
Ram
Posted 2014-02-22T12:38:18.440
Reputation: 193
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DNS can't match URLs. It only provides an IP address for a hostname (fp, in this case). After acquiring the IP address to connect to, the browser sends its request. This request contains the original hostname – you can see this in the request headers in HttpFox.
For the redirection to work, there has to be a HTTP server listening at the IP address the hostname resolved to. This server is configured to respond to requests containing hostname fp with a redirect to http://apps/FPMS/aspx/FPMSHome.aspx.
In Apache HTTPd, this would be accomplished like this:
<VirtualHost 10.1.2.3:80>
ServerName fp
RedirectPermanent / http://apps/FPMS/aspx/FPMSHome.aspx
</VirtualHost>
Similar configurations are possible in virtually every HTTP server. Your company most likely uses Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).
Daniel B
Posted 2014-02-22T12:38:18.440
Reputation: 40 502
You could use tools like HttpFox to check what's happening. Alternatively, a debugging proxy like Fiddler would also yield that information. – Daniel B – 2014-02-22T12:58:36.810
thanks @DanielB . i tried with HttpFox. When i enter fp/ , the logs shows as redirecting to the link. but i'm eager to know how its getting redirected. – Ram – 2014-02-22T13:13:23.927
If these are Windows machines, WINS may be what is used to resolve to IP address. I see it all the time in well-established organizations especially with file shares. But the answer below explains how the redirect is happening. – milli – 2014-03-08T20:18:31.887