Windows 7 Problem accessing IP address

[Landers]

Wonder if someone can tell me what is going on here. As a result of out in house DNS server setup, I need to go to this site www.swpc.noaa.gov by way of its ip address 140.172.17.21. But when I try to do that, I get the following page:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved

The following error was encountered while trying to retrieve the URL: http://140.172.17.21/

Access Denied.

Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time. Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.

Your cache administrator is [email protected].
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Why will it not allow me to access the swpc.noaa.gov directly using the ip?
Thanks.

 

[Josephur]

What your asking to do is not possible, and here's why. The IP address your referencing probably hosts multiple websites. Often web servers look at the address header to see which site your requesting from the IP address, and uses it to determine which content to return. It has no site configured on the IP alone, but when you connect using the hostname it knows exactly what you want.

Bigger question is why isn't your in house DNS resolving it for you?

1. Fix your DNS server, reverse forwarding should allow it to resolve all external names.
2. Add a manual entry in your hosts file "140.172.17.21 www.swpc.noaa.gov" (while this may work I can see complications, what if a link on the site points to www2.swpc.noaa.gov?)

 

[Landers]

What your asking to do is not possible, and here's why. The IP address your referencing probably hosts multiple websites. Often web servers look at the address header to see which site your requesting from the IP address, and uses it to determine which content to return. It has no site configured on the IP alone, but when you connect using the hostname it knows exactly what you want.

Bigger question is why isn't your in house DNS resolving it for you?

1. Fix your DNS server, reverse forwarding should allow it to resolve all external names.
2. Add a manual entry in your hosts file "140.172.17.21 www.swpc.noaa.gov" (while this may work I can see complications, what if a link on the site points to www2.swpc.noaa.gov?)

Appreciate your reply. Agree with everything you said. For some reason, everything is resolving OK now. I didn't do anything except I had to do a complete restore of my system with Paragon for other reasons. Apparently just something weird going on.