proxy in infinite loop on NT

I configured Jigsaw as a proxy. Now NT has an interesting feature. It 
supports a server alias sort of by default. For instance, my server is 
named darrell in the NT space. In the IP space it is named 
darrell.wins.compaq.com. You can PING darrell or darrell.wins.compaq.com. 
They both work. However, when Jigsaw initializes, the host name he gets is 
darrell.wins.compaq.com.

Ok, now it gets interesting.....
I tell my browser to go to http://darrell.wins.compaq.com/ and everything 
works fine...

I tell my browser to go to http://darrell/  and....

Jigsaw interprets request as a proxy request and forwards packet to 
darrell.
Jigsaw receives this request and interprets request as a proxy request 
and...well you get the idea. Jigsaw loops until it fails with a null 
pointer exception in  AgentIn (I think the debugger crashed, cafe 1.51 you 
know).

This is not a virtual host issue. Virtual hosts have different IP 
addresses. IP name aliases
are multiple names for the same IP address.

Questions:

1)  I am not sure if HTTP spec. requires proxy to validate host names, 
check for validity,
etc.? Can someone clarify..maybe its in the URI spec.? 

2) Should Jigsaw Proxy also check the IP address and not just the name of 
the host?

3) Should Jigsaw Proxy try to get the default name of the host he is trying 
to contact?  

4) I haven't tried it yet, but NT allows multiple NICs each with a 
different IP address and possibly
different domain names but same host name. How will Jigsaw react to this 
situation? How should it react?

Darrell Starnes
Internet Solutions Division, Compaq Computer
email: starnes@netgate.compaq.com
voice: 713-518-3812

Received on Tuesday, 10 December 1996 15:42:30 UTC