website hosting

[quest]

:no: I have built a website and am wanting to host it off of my clients server. I have Abyss Web Server setup and the website is viewable using the servers IP address over the network, however, when you try to view it on the web using the external IP it is not viewable. I'm not familiar enough with networking to know if this could be a setting in the firewall or on the server itself to keep this site from being viewed. I have a domain name being relayed through the external IP and it also does not work. If somebody knows a possible way to help me out I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Quest
Quest FX

[quest]

on my firewall settings, I have my external network setup with the external ip that my domain is going which is the ip that my web server is giving me, is there any way that this could be wrong? then on my incoming traffic on the firewall i have the following settings:
No Rule, Deny, Allow CU-SeeMe
No Rule, Deny, Allow DNS
No Rule, Deny, Allow FTP
No Rule, Deny, Allow HTTP
No Rule, Deny, Allow HTTPS
No Rule, Deny, Allow ILS
No Rule, Deny, Allow IPSec
No Rule, Deny, Allow NetMeeting
No Rule, Deny, Allow NNTP
No Rule, Deny, Allow Ping
No Rule, Deny, Allow POP3
No Rule, Deny, Allow PPTP
No Rule, Deny, Allow SMB
No Rule, Deny, Allow SMTP
No Rule, Deny, Allow SNMP
No Rule, Deny, Allow ssh
No Rule, Deny, Allow Telnet
No Rule, Deny, Allow WatchGuard

which are all set to no rule except for http and the ip set on that is the ip to the firewall. is this correct?
thanks for the help, in advance.

Quest
Quest FX

[ceh383]

How do you connect to the internet, through a router or proxy server?

When a request for the web page comes in from the outside, it goes to the router/proxy server. That request needs to be forwarded to the web server.

Not knowing what your setup is makes it hard to give an accurate answer.

[quest]

my cable modem is connected to a firewall which is then connected to my server which is then connected to a network router. does that help. I don't believe that there is a proxy on the server.

[bAdWaYz]

Well depending on how secure you have that server set up you can do one thing that will get it out on the web fast heheh. If you are secure and patched you could always go into the router settings and set up that server box as a DMZ. That would put it outside on the big bad internet. Before you did any such thing however be sure that box is sealed up tight because if its not you will get spanked.

[ceh383]

What firewall are you using?

[quest]

I'm using a SOHO Watchguard 5.0

[PostCode]

You should just be able to open Port 80 in the firewall and point the Virtual Server to the internel IP of the web server in question.

[quest]

sorry, i'm pretty new to networking, how do I open port 80 with the firewall?
thanks

[PostCode]

Going to need the make and model of the router in order to properly determine how.

[quest]

SOHO Watchguard ver. 5.0

[PostCode]

It looks like this is the area you would set that in:

http://www.ericscomputing.com/images/pics/router_config.jpg


Hope this helps.

[quest]

ok, in that section what do I have to allow or do I have to create a custom service?

[PostCode]

Just like it shows. For HTTP, allow it and put the IP addy of the system that's the web server in.

[quest]

ok i've done that but i'm still running into the same problem. could this be that it's not the firewall? thanks for your help.

[quest]

I think I figured out my problem. I can ping my external IP address but the return signal comes from my firewall. If I could change that to where the return signal comes from my server would that allow me to view the site because that is where the site is being hosted from. If this will help how do I go about changing that setting. I have a watchguard SOHO v.5 firewall if that is any help. Thanks a lot.

[gmbastos]

Is your network topology as 1-2-3-4, where:

1: cable modem;
2: firewall;
3: webserver;
4: internal router?

Or it is more like 1-4-2-3? In this case, if your router has a built-in firewall, incoming traffic must be allowed by your router too.

Your firewall should be setup to permit incoming traffic on port 80 to your webserver (and just to it). Does your ISP allow traffic to your network? Do you have a permanent IP address?

If you have a secure webserver, you could put it in a DMZ, as bAdWaYz suggested. So that your firewall will not interfere in traffic towards your server. Just be sure, if your topology matches the second option above, to setup the same DMZ on your router.

Regards.

[gmbastos]

By the way, if your webserver do not have its own external IP address, you must use NAT in order to get it visible to the outer world.

Could you tell us what are your server IP address? If it falls in one of the following ranges, NAT will be required:

1) 10.0.0.1 to 10.255.255.254
2) 172.16.0.1 to 172.31.255.254
3) 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.255.254