What Is Multi-Homing?

Multi-Homing and single-homing refer to how many internet addresses a computer can be referred to by. The single-homed computer is only on one network. The multi-homed computer contains more than one Network Adapter and can have several network addresses (one for each Network Adapter).

By default MyWebServer is a Multi_homed program. That means that MyWebServer can respond to any of the active network addresses on the computer it is running on.

By default when MyWebServer starts up if there are more than one active network addresses on your computer MyWebServer picks one of them as an Absolute Internet address to be used in the URLs that refer to your computer.

There are 2 command line arguments that can be used if you want to set the IP address MyWebServer is bound to, or the Absolute IP address MyWebServer uses to refer to your computer.

-bind
The -bind argument is used if you want MyWebServer to be single-homed. That is bound to one of the network addresses on your computer. If you want MyWebServer to be be bound to an internet address like 1.2.3.4 you would start MyWebServer with a command line like this: MyWebServer.exe -bind 1.2.3.4

-absolute
The -absolute argument is used if you want to force MyWebServer to use the supplied address in all the URLs that refer to your computer. You can supply the -absolute option by itself without the -bind option. In this case MyWebServer may still be multi-homed but will use the IP address you supply instead of the one it chooses. The -bind option may be used by itself without specifying -absolute. In this case your MyWebServer will be single-homed and the IP address supplied in the -bind argument will be used as the absolute address as well.

How do you know the address to use?
You can use the Single-Homed Launcher to list the active IP addresses on your computer or you can run the IPConfig program that comes with Windows to see a list of Network Adapters currently installed on your computer. You may want to use the /All option when you run IPConfig. You can run IPConfig by typing the following into a DOS Window:
IPConfig /All

Read the Description field for each Adapter until you find the one you want. When you find the adapter make a note of it's IP Address. This is the value you will want to use as the -bind or -absolute argument.

How do you start MyWebServer with a command line argument?

1. Use the Single-Homed Launcher to choose one of the active IP addresses on your computer and launch MyWebServer with the correct -bind and -absolute options. For more information and to download the Single-Homed Launcher Click Here.

OR

2. Open a DOS window and navigate to the directory where MyWebServer.exe is installed. The default location is C:\Program Files\MyWebServer. You would type the following line if you want to bind MyWebServer to IP address 1.2.3.4.
MyWebServer.exe -bind 1.2.3.4

OR

3. Create a shortcut for MyWebServer by selecting its icon, right clicking and selecting Create Shortcut from the popup menu. Select the newly created shortcut, right click on it and select Properties from the popup menu. When the Shortcut properties page appears click the Shortcut tab. place the option name and argument value after MyWebserver.exe in the target field for instance if the IP address you want to bind to is 1.2.3.4 the target field would display.
C:\Program Files\MyWebServer\MyWeberver.exe -bind 1.2.3.4
Remember there must be a space between MyWebServer.exe and -bind and there must also be a space between -bind and the IP address you supply. Click OK. You are done this shortcut will run MyWebServer with the command line argument you added and MyWebServer will bind itself to the IP address you supplied.