Connecting ESP8266 to Virtual IP Address / Websites

Question

I'm using the ESP8266 wifi module to send/receive packets on the web from my microcontroller. In particular I've been using the

AT+CIPSTART="TCP",'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,80\r\n

command to pick which endpoint I'm sending packets to. It currently works with static IPs (or domains with static IPs); but I have yet to find a resource saying how this could work with virtual IPs (or domains with virtual IPs).

I have websites hosted on shared servers, but every-time I execute this CIPSTART command (with IP or domain), the response is of the generic shared server IP address page.

How can I get my ESP8266 to connect with my specific site that is hosted on a shared server with a virtual address?

Resources I've read:

By "virtual IP" do you mean dynamic IP which changes over time or a virtual host where there is a single static IP, but hosts multiple websites on different domains? — gre_gor
– gre_gor, Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 20:20
Virtual host with single static IP and hosts multiple domains. — Devon Bernard
– Devon Bernard, Commented Oct 5, 2015 at 8:44

Scott · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-06 00:08:09Z

1

You should be able to use the domain name, as the DNS will automatically resolve the IPs for you. Be careful about the length value. You should add at least 4 characters to the actual length of the GET string to account for the carriage return / new line feeds:

AT+CIPSTART="TCP","api.thingspeak.com",80   
AT+CIPSEND=80
GET http://api.thingspeak.com/update?key=PBG7CKSZU6FU3M4C&field1=5 HTTP/1.0

answered Oct 6, 2015 at 0:08

Scott

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gre_gor · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-05 19:23:18Z

0

To connect to a virtual host, you connect normally to its IP and port with AT+CIPSTART.

AT+CIPSTART="TCP","xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx",80\r\n

The important part is when you send the HTTP request with AT+CIPSEND.
For the web server to distinguish between different virtual hosts, you need to add a Host HTTP header into the request.

GET /request.php?key=value HTTP/1.1\r\n
Host: www.example.com\r\n
\r\n

With this, the web server should return from the right host and not the default one, from the host provider.

edited Oct 5, 2015 at 19:23

answered Oct 5, 2015 at 9:51

gre_gor

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2 Comments

Devon Bernard Over a year ago

I don't see how this connects to ESP8266. I've already tried using domain-names with the AT+CIPSTART and the http response is the generic one served from the shared IP address, not the one from the specific domain.

gre_gor Over a year ago

@DevonBernard I edited the answer to make it clearer.

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