Web Service Client using computer name instead of IP

Question

Hi,
I've built a small EJB web service with a JAVA application deployed via JAVA Web Start for the client.
I testing the application on our LAN and it worked perfectly on one machine. I tested it on another machine and I get an erro along the lines of:
HTTP Transport Error java.net.UnknownHostException: Ian
"ian" being the computer name of the server machine hosting the EJB we service. I presume the program worked on the first machine as it new which computer on the LAN was "ian", whereas the second machine didnt'.
The applications were built in NetBeans and the only place i can see the "ian" address being used is in the client WSDL file:
  <service name="VOQAOnline">
    <port binding="tns:VOQAOnlineSEIBinding" name="VOQAOnlineSEIPort">
      <soap:address location="http://ian:8080/VOQAOnline-EJBModule/VOQAOnline"/>
    </port>
  </service>Netbeans seems determined to keep this address using the computer name, even if i delete the web service refernce add it again using the server ip address. I've also tried editing the WSDL file in the client JAR post compile, however the error still occurs, so maybe the problem is somewhere else?
The App server I am using is JBoss 4.0.3. Maybe there is a configuration on the server i need to do?
Eventually I plan to deploy the client app over the Internet, so using the computer name is clearly insufficient and it needs to use the IP. It's really annoying how it works on some machines on the network but not others. Any ideas on how to solve this?

Answer 1

You can associate a Virtual Host to the loopback IP address 127.0.0.1 read about Virtual Hosts here: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/virtual-hosting-howto.html
But with the above configuration alone you can access your app via http://somedomainname.com only on your local machine, no one else on the internet will see it.