[Novices] All About Hosts

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> In Windows, I'd set up the DNS server and configure the zone records, maybe 
> assign multiple IPs to the one server NIC, and set up virtual hosts in IIS. 
> No problem. Been there, done that. With Linux, is this the best approach?

Yes, create a DNS domain;  best of with a local root like ".myhome".
Then configure virtual hosts.  In SuSe I believe you can do this via
Yast.

> Been reading all night and it looks possible to ...
> 1.) Configure the NIC with multiple IPs

Yep, it is called aliasing.

> 2.) Configure Apache to listen on those IPs, yes? And Apache would serve 
> any port 80 request that resolved to one of the NIC's IPs with the proper site?

Yep,  I believe apache listens to all interfaces by default.

> 3.) Configure the HOSTS file on my Windows machine (where I do my web 
> design) to map to the IPs on the NIC on the web server.

You could do that, or just create a DNS domain.

> Is there a way to set up the web server machine so that I wouldn't have to 
> configure the HOSTS file on the Windows machine?

Create a DNS server on the Linux box and configure the zones.