Defining port in A record

I am trying to configure a windows 2000 server machine running a dns server to route requests to URL to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8001 but when I open MMC and go to add an A record there is no place to put the port in. there are 4 slots to put in the ip address you want to go to, but no place to specify a port for this address. I also tried adding a CNAME and doing it that way but it wont let me put it in there either. I know its possible to assign an ip and port to a domain name as many name provider services have web interfaces that allow you to do it. Does anyone know how to do this using windows DNS Server? thanks in advance. -Brion

You need to configure and start a service listening to that port on that IP... Ports have nothing to do with the DNS.

I have a webserver listening on port 8001 and mydomain.com pointing to the IP address of that machine. Right now in order to access that server I have to type in URL isn't there some way using DNS to say that URL should not just go to a specific IP, but an IP and a port so that URL will go to my webserver on port 8001 without having to put the port manually in with the domain name? If not could you tell me how people are running multiple webservers on different ports of the same machine with seperate domain names resolving, as this is my final goal. For instance I want to be able to have a server running on 8001 and 8002 each with seperate domain names and not have to have people type in the port name. URL would go to the server on port 8001 and URL would go to the server on port 8002. Thanks again for the help, I just can't seem to figure this one out. -Brion

>> isn't there some way using DNS to say that www.mydomain.com should not just go to a specific IP, but an IP and a port
No. The purpose of DNS is to resolve www.mydomain.com to a specific IP address. DNS doesn't know about or care about whether you need to connect to http, ftp, e-mail, https, quake, ssh or any other port on that address.

[edit]
I bet you're running off a home cable modem and your ISP has blocked incoming requests to port 80. If you want to run your own webserver from home, why don't you ask your ISP if they offer a webhost special -- most of them do, but you might need to pay a little extra for this privilege. As for hosting two domains, google for name based virtual hosting. That's how people host multiple domains on the same webserver.
[/edit]

DNS does not handle ports. Although the active directory intergrated DNS that often gets run on a windows 2000 server does create well know service and other SRV class records which can define which TCP ports to use for a specific service.

Much easier would be to define the port used in the webserver itself. Every web server (IIS, apache, NES, iplanet) i have ever seen can be configured on any TCP port you want.

You can write a webserver backend script or redirect to provide redirection.

Windows 2000 DNS does not support this. Nor does 2003 DNS, but if you use Linux's Bind you can specify port with IP and it works fine E.G. 127.0.0.1:81. You may not have a linux box, but there are Win32 versions of bind available. I dont know if the Win32 versions of Bind support this but I would bet they do. Hope this helps

Sam Land
http://www.dyndnsservices.com

-- My bad --- flame removed

To the original poster -- You can use SilentRage's suggestion if you like -- some companies offer a web redirection service. The way it works is, you point your domain name (www.yourdomain.com) to their webserver and when a user goes to www.yourdomain.com, they actually go to their website. Then, those guys either
(a) Redirect the user to your webserver's IP address with a high port such as http://12.34.56.78:8081/
(b) Serve up a frame and put a link to your webserver in one of the frames (http://12.34.56.78:/8081/)

Most of them use option (b) and serve up ads in the other frames (which you may not like). Also, if your home IP address changes, you'll need to update the information on their servers. One more disadvantage is that search engine spiders may not follow the redirect to your site, so your content may not get crawled.

Umm.... are you sure that you are reading your documentation correctly? In all the years that DNS has existed it not once has provided port mapping. Err.. ending flame since I noticed Scorp has gotten to you already.

Also that seems to be a good solution for it all.

The BIND comment works please try yourself. Windows DNS supports this with SRV records the only hangup beeing no current browsers ftp clients etc. support SRV lookups.

I have personally done this with BIND 8. Whether it is documented or not is anouther matter, maybe it should be considred a bug but it does work. The below DNS config file will redirect a browser to port 81.

$TTL 38400
website.com. IN SOA jack sam.website.com. (
10822
3600
3600
38400
38400 )

website.com. IN NS jack
website.com. IN A 24.116.98.21:81
ftp.website.com. IN A 24.116.98.21:21
www.website.com. IN A 24.116.98.21:81
straight.website.com. IN A 24.116.98.21

First Off I do not run a DNS Service Second why would I recomend BIND if I were advertising my software.

The statement above does work. maybe you should try yourself before bashing someone who is just trying to help. Oh yeah no server in the world supports this. well if a DNS server supports SRV records it does go figure.