Web Hosting IIS question

[Orcmonkey]

I'm hosting a site on my server with IIS (2k) and am using a dns redirection service (xxx.noip.org for example) now, this all works fine, but the site cannot be accessed unless there is NO www in the address. If one types orcmonkey.no-ip.org it works fine, but www.orcmonkey.no-ip.org doesn't, comes up 404. Is there some setting in IIS I need to set? I looked around but didn't find one. Help!

[Dave22]

Nothing is wrong on the IIS side. You would need a sub-domain/zone of "orcmonkey.no-ip.org" in order to add "www" to the URL. This is a DNS issue.

For example, if you owned the domain "mycompany.com", you could create A or CNAME records that point to "mail" or "blah". These would create the hosts

mail.mycompany.com
blah.mycompany.com

Now, let's say you wanted to expand on that. Let's say you wanted to have the address "www.whatever.mycompany.com". That would mean that you would have to create a subdomain of "whatever.mycompany.com". That way, you could create an A or CNAME record for "www" or "host1" (as examples). Those would make it:

www.whatever.mycompany.com
host1.whatever.mycompany.com

Unless you own the domain, it may be tough to get a subdomain for a service like "noip.org". Remember that "www" is just a defacto standard of naming web sites. The "www" is merely a hostname just like any other on the Internet.