PI Hosts File!

[silentbull]

Hello,

Why are we maintaining entries in host file with IP address and host name?

For eg., In order to use our company leave database which is hosted by external vendor, we simply type in the URL in our browser and we are able to access the same.

But if I try using PI communication channel, it does not work unless we maintian the host file entries. Why is this so?

People also talk about DNS stuff which I am not able to understand.

Please clarify

Regards

Sam

[former_member192343]

For eg., In order to use our company leave database which is hosted by external vendor, we simply type in the URL in our browser and we are able to access the same.
But if I try using PI communication channel, it does not work unless we maintian the host file entries. Why is this so?

A computer from wich you use your company leave database and PI server are different systems, they could be in different domains. Your local computer knows about database host name from dns or from local hosts file, and PI server doesn't know abot it if it use other domain, other dns and it have its own hosts file.

[former_member184720]

As a middleware PI connects/integrates the internal & external systems.

Every application (file/soap/jdbc etc) has two options to identify IP address/Host name and you can use either of them.

When you are using host name then DNS comes into picture. DNS is something which translates the Hostname to the corresponding ip address which is maintained in your host file.

If you configure IP address i dont think you need to maintain any entry in the host file

Why we use hostname but not IP:

Let's assume we have 50 communication channels connecting to an application and configured with the IP address.

Due to migration/any acitivity the IP address of the system has been changed. Then you will have to configure all the 50 channels with the new IP address

Instead of that if you configure the host name then you can simply change the corresponding IP address in the host file.

[Former Member]

Hi Sam,

The people talk about dns because the dns server translates a hostname to an i[ address. If your DNS works, there's no need to maintain a lot of entries in the hosts file.

Only if your dns is not configured, not working, or has entries missing, you need to maintain the hosts file to do the translation from hostname to ip address.

Kind regards,

Koen