[WEB4LIB] Linking to numeric IP addresses vs. alpha in URLS

[TMGB]

Stacy,

   Bob Jones has a good suggestion with the Hosts file.  Also, going ahead
with ip's as links is not a good resolution if you have vendors like some
of mine that change servers daily, you will have to edit links daily or
worse.  Normally vendors will use up to three different servers from what
I've seen so, if you use a secondary DNS server or a Hosts file you could
probably find out the three or so ips they use in short order.  Then just
add them  to your Hosts file or a second DNS server.  If you are using
Win95 clients you can add that DNS server to DNS search list.  A third
alternative might be to see if you can get permission use the DNS ip of
another institution or vendor close to you, I think this will work and just
add it to the DNS search list ( again, if you are using win9x).

Thomas

Stacy Pober wrote:

> At our library we have several databases (our catalog and some
> periodical databases) supplied over an Extranet connection.  The
> Extranet is intended to provide better performance and more stability
> in our connection to these sites.  The problem is, when the Extranet is
> up and the campus Internet connection is down, we aren't always able to
> access the Extranet sites.  This is supposedly due to DNS failure
> as there is no DNS server on the Extranet and our local DNS server does
> not cache addresses.   (I say 'supposedly' because one of those sites
> does not allow ping or tracert connections from the Extranet sites, and
> the failure message isn't one that indicates DNS problems per se.)
>
> I was considering switching the alphabetic domain name with the numeric
> IP addresses in our links to these sites, but according to tech support
> at one of the vendors, they don't think this is a good idea, since
> they may switch servers (and thus numeric IP's) at times.  Since we
> just went through a period of several days when we were unable to
> access one of these services, I was considering providing a backup link
> with a numeric IP for just these times, as in:
>
> <A href="http://vendor.com/search.html">database</a><br>
> <a href="http://123.123.123.1/search.html">alternate link for
> database</a>
>
> Has anyone done something like this?  The idea of providing backup
> links just seems a little clunky - is there a more elegant solution?
> Is there a way to save the DNS information for these sites locally, so
> we wouldn't run into this problem?  According to the campus computing
> folks, the campus DNS server does not cache address information, so
> "locally" would be at the brower or PC  level, not at the DNS server.
>
> //\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\
> Stacy Pober                   mailto: spober at manhattan.edu
> Information Alchemist         http://www.manhattan.edu/library/
> Manhattan College Libraries   Voice: 718-862-7166
> Riverdale, NY 10471           Fax:   718-862-7995
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