Note: Many topics at this site are reduced versions of the text in "The Encyclopedia of Networking and Telecommunications." Search results will not be as extensive as a search of the book's CD-ROM.

The basic description of a multihomed host is a computer that has multiple network connections. On the Internet, a multihomed system is one that is connected to two upstream service providers. Several Internet RFCs discuss this:

• RFC 1787 (Routing in a Multi-provider Internet, April 1995)


• RFC 2260 (Scalable Support for Multi-homed Multi-provider Connectivity, January 1998)


• RFC 2270 (Using a Dedicated AS for Sites Homed to a Single Provider, January 1998)


• RFC 2901 (Guide to Administrative Procedures of the Internet Infrastructure, August 2000)


• RFC 1998 (An Application of the BGP Community Attribute in Multi-home Routing, August 1996)

Still another description is as a Web server that supports multiple domains in the same system. When Web clients connect to one of the domains, they cannot tell they are accessing a system that is supporting other domains. UNIX systems, Windows 2000 Server, and other operating systems currently support multihomed features. Microsoft calls a multihomed Web server a virtual server.

A multihomed server is one that has two or more network interface cards installed. Alternatively, single NICs with multiple IP addresses are multihomed.

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