Using wget/curl to connect to specific server/vhost

One of DNS advantages is it's round-robin capability. But often you need to connect to specific server to specific vhost.

wget is capable of performing this task, just use --header switch:

wget http://2.2.2.2/the_url_to_test/ --header 'Host: www.example.com'

curl also can ;-)

curl --verbose --header 'Host: www.example.com''http://2.2.2.2/the_url_to_test'

Very handy features for shell programming!

References:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-wget/2011-03/msg00040.html
http://drewish.com/content/2010/03/using_curl_and_the_host_header_to_bypass_a_load_balancer