Could someone please explain how winsock connects using RemoteHostName?

[Captain Pinko]

Could someone please explain how winsock connects using RemoteHostName? Does is try every IP or is there an online database with that info? Also, is it quicker for connection to enter the IP number as the RemoteHostName? Are there any common problems associated with either one, please post ANY helpful reply.
Thnx
Captain Pinko (Ret)

[parksie]

It does a DNS lookup, then connects to the specific IP address. Most of the time, there is only a small performance penalty for a DNS lookup.

[noone]

The only time you might have a problem is if your user's DNS (Domain Name Server, it maps names to IP addresses) is down or slow. My DNS server seems to go down a few times while my internet connection stays up. I hate my provider, but its the only broadband connection I have access too.

[Captain Pinko]

What would happen if there is more than one computer with the same name online? how would you determine to which one you were connecting to? But you can't have two identical IP addresses can you? Wouldn't that be an advantage to using HostNames?

[noone]

You can't have two domain names that are the same. You don't see two yahoo.com do you?
If you mean computer names on networks, those won't work over the internet.

I'd like to add that for a LAN, Windows looks up lmhosts.txt in the Windows directory before it tries DNS lookup to get the IP of the hostname (LAN only?), by putting in the hostnames and IPs into lmhosts.txt, it saves a considerable amount of speed in the network. I tend to really notice the difference when transferring files to a computer with and to one without a lmhosts file.

Theres a file called lmhosts.sam in the Windows directory that is a sample file.

Sunny

[parksie]

No, Windows looks up the hosts file, which works for any IP address. Handy for disabling adverts - set the ads.doubleclick.net address to 127.0.0.1 ;)