IIS Custom site not reachable in localhost

Question

IIS Custom site not reachable in localhost

Ivan Kanchev 121

Hi all,

So i am trying some basic setup that is not working for some reason.
I have one VM with Server 2016 where i have IIS installed. The Default site is working fine. I am trying to add second site on custom port for testing purposes.
I created new site as below:

I modified the bindings:

But when i try to access this site i get unreachable:

Last i have created DNS record:

Any suggestion is welcome.

Bruce Zhang-MSFT 3,771 Reputation points

2021-12-21T02:01:06.9+00:00

Hi @Ivan Kanchev ,

If you run Ping domain name command in cmd, can you receive data from server? What about Ping IP?

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Bruce Zhang-MSFT 3,771 Reputation points

2021-12-21T02:01:06.9+00:00

Hi @Ivan Kanchev ,

If you run Ping domain name command in cmd, can you receive data from server? What about Ping IP?

Answer 1

Michael Taylor 60,161

Leave the port # alone. When you are hosting multiple sites then that is where the host header comes in. When IIS gets a request it looks at the host header name. If that matches the name of a site then it matches to that site automatically. If none of them match then it is going to go to the default site (assuming it also isn't using a host header). You don't need to change port #s at all.

The only time you should be changing port #s is if you need to host multiple sites on the same server and you cannot use host headers. Of course for a host header to work at all you also need to ensure that you've configured a DNS record to point to that same server. Given your example you need to have configured DNS to map that DNS name to your server (or do it in a .hosts file if you're testing locally).

Ivan Kanchev 121 Reputation points

2021-12-21T08:44:40.393+00:00

Thanks for the answer.

That was the first thing i did - create a site without touching the port, or leave it at 80 as it is by default. I just edited the binding i didn't touch anything else, but i get the same issue.

Answer 2

Ivan Kanchev 121

It turns out the answer was much simpler.
After creating the new site i needed to add entry in the hosts file. No DNS record was needed.

Michael Taylor 60,161 Reputation points

2021-12-21T14:50:11.593+00:00

The hosts file is the local DNS. That's what I mentioned in my post. In order to use that DNS name you have to add it to your DNS records (for the network) or your hosts file (if you only need it locally). But note that hosts doesn't work across the network so every machine that needs to connect to that site has to have the same entry (or use the DNS server).
Ivan Kanchev 121 Reputation points

2021-12-21T18:07:02.08+00:00

Same as with long emails we tend not to read the whole thing. So yea, now that you mention it i see there is hosts file in your post :)

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IIS Custom site not reachable in localhost

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