[Mailman-Users] what is a virtual domain?

[Lindsay Haisley]

On Thu, 2012-11-15 at 19:38 -0800, Thufir wrote:
> How does a virtual domain differ from a domain?

To add to what Mark said, technically a "virtual domain" is a domain
name that resolves in the domain name system to the same IP address as
the primary ("real") domain name for your host.  A server host can have
many domain names, all pointing to the same IP address, and this is
common for web and mail servers these days.

If the protocols supporting the service to the host support it, the
particular service agent (mail server, web server, whatever) can
determine the name by which it was addressed and do something
intelligent with it.  This ability is built into the HTTP1.1 standard,
and also into the SMTP standard.  A list server sits behind a mail
server, so technically it _could_ do something with the virtual domain
name.  It all depends on the way the service agent handles this
information.

-- 
Lindsay Haisley       | "We have met the enemy and he is us."
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