Compter viruses do it, why can't I?
May 6, 2012 2:15 PM   Subscribe

Is there any an easy way to get Internet Explorer to redirect internal network links through a different IP address? For technical reasons that are not clear to me, we've been unable to access links to a client's Sharepoint site. However, we've found that if we change the "sharepoint" part of the address to a specific IP address, it works fine. (http://sharepoint/menu to http://1.2.34.56/menu). Is there a way to get Internet Explorer to automatically resolve the link through the IP address? I tried changing the system host file but that only seems to work for whole domains. Googling turned up a Firefox extension but unfortunately I'm stuck in IE. Please help! Thanks!
posted by Hermes32 to Computers & Internet (9 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Is the sharepoint site name set up in DNS? While on the internal network, go to a command prompt & type "nslookup sharepoint site name". If it isn't found there, someone may need to speak with your Active Directory or other IT person to set up the name to resolve to the correct IP address.
posted by kellyblah at 2:21 PM on May 6, 2012


Is it a DNS issue? Perhaps use nslookup to troubleshoot lookups that are working and not working.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:23 PM on May 6, 2012


Adding...

1.2.34.56 sharepoint

to

c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

should do it but "I tried changing the system host file but that only seems to work for whole domains." makes it sound like you've tried that already.
posted by dgeiser13 at 2:23 PM on May 6, 2012 [2 favorites]


If your IE instance is set to use a proxy server, you may need to make the /etc/hosts change on that machine instead.
posted by jenkinsEar at 2:43 PM on May 6, 2012


jenkinEar has it right - your browser is probably set up to go through a proxy. You need to either tell the proxy where the sharepoint server is by add it to the /etc/hosts file on the proxy machine, or add "sharepoint" to the list of addresses that IE bypasses the proxy on.

If IE is set to use a proxy automatically, you can also modify the PAC file so that sharepoint requests go directly.
posted by AndrewStephens at 3:44 PM on May 6, 2012


Best answer: If you try the whole FQDN does that work? As in, you can't ping sharepoint, but you can ping sharepoint.ho.company.local. If yes, add their DNS suffix to your network connection.
posted by tracert at 4:10 PM on May 6, 2012


Very interesting. As well - one thing to remember, as typically configured, SharePoint will ONLY respond to addresses/names it is specifically told to respond too.

What I mean by this, is that when someone sets up a SharePoint "webapp", they have to specify either the server-name (default) or a friendly, DNS-name (sometimes fully-qualified) - but SharePoint will typically not respond to ANYTHING else... (IP address, "localhost" when accessing it locally, etc.)

Your best bet is as others have mentioned - add a local entry to your hosts file (assuming your browser is not setup to go through a proxy - if it is, try a different browser (USB drive version of FireFox) that you have full control over (in many organizations, modifying settings in Internet Explorer is locked-down, via Group Policy).
posted by jkaczor at 7:37 PM on May 6, 2012


Also - what could be messing things up for you is... having both IPv4 and IPv6 enabled on your machine - if both are enabled, and your network "sorta" supports v6 - then it will take precedence over IPv4 addresses - even via the "hosts" file. I have seen this on several occasions.

(This is typically the case if your desktop is Windows Vista or 7 - and realistically - IPv6 should be explicitly disabled, if your network isnt truly using it.)

I don't have time tomorrow - but, if you haven't figured it out by EOD - send me a MeMail - I may be able to help you troubleshoot remotely Tuesday - maybe even a quick WebEx/LiveMeeting/remote-desktop session would be possible.
posted by jkaczor at 7:47 PM on May 6, 2012


Response by poster: I finally had a chance to look at this again and managed to figure it out! It turns out that there was no DNS suffix specified for the local connection. When I added the company.root.loc to the connection profile and restarted my computer, the links started resolving correctly. It turns out that the IP address they gave us - 1.2.34.56 - was just the fully resolved domain name for sharepoint.company.root.loc.

Thanks for all the suggestions!
posted by Hermes32 at 4:55 PM on May 16, 2012


« Older Last minute travel plans: looking for ideas on...   |   Help me get enough cat hair to make a new cat off... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.