Running a Web Server using DSL - Pendragon

[shadowtn]

Split threads to make Pendragon's thread his own to prevent confusion for others in the future :) - Mntsnow

[Pendragon]

I found this site through Google and reading some of the responses on here lead me to signing up. You guys seem to be great. Nice and friendly and very helpful or willing to help. Thanks.

I have looked at one of the sites posted here and it seems to be really good and I shall be testing some of the information later tonight. I am using a DLink DI 604 with a Westel DSL modem and even though I have a static IP, when I do a ping on my server, I am not seeing the static IP, but the 192.168.0.1 - so I cannot expose to the web. My server is unreacheable from the web.

I would really appreciate it if there was a simple solution to overcome this.

Thanks

[Mntsnow]

Who is your ISP Jeff?

Btw Welcome to Xtreme Pc Central :)

Do you know what your public IP is? Do you use MSN or Yahoo? if so I'd be more than willing to help you get this figured out :)

[Pendragon]

MntsSnow, thanks for the welcome.

I am using bellsouth as an ISP, but do not know my IP by heart. I use yahoo messenger, but cannot run it from work since they are regulating such. My username on yahoo messenger is Pendragon1000. I am reacheable under that name per email too. I hope we can be online at the same time, as I would really appreciate any suggestions I can get.

[Mntsnow]

Well I use yahoo id Mntsnow :) I will add you to my list and hopefully we can get you up and going quickly.

Under bellsouth are you sure that they are allowing server services on your connection (IE they are not blocking port 80 inbound?)

[Mntsnow]

Basically you need to know what your WAN ip is on the westel dsl modem. The WAN IP is what IP your going to use to try and connect to your webserver.

Your basic setup is going to need to be laid out like

Westel - DLink DI 604 - Webserver

First thing you need to do is forward Port 80 in the Dlink to the Webservers IP of 192.168.0.xx

Then open up a browser and type in http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

replacing the XXX's with the WAN ip that the westel modem is using. (this IP is given to you by Bellsouth) If Bellsouth is not blocking inbound port 80 requests then your webserver (if configured correctly) will serve the index page and you will be up and going :)

[Pendragon]

I was on the phone with them yesterday. Before the IT specialist crashed my router and I had to bring it back up, she was able to browse a simple web page on my server when it was directly connected to the DSL modem. As far as I can make out, it seems that when I connect the modem to the router and serve the computers through the router, the router is returning its own IP, which is 192.168.0.1. I tried to brige, assigned PPPOE static and some other things I cannot think of right now. Under some of the configurations I could not even surf the web. But when I can get it to be able to surf, then the static IP is not coming through to my system.

[Pendragon]

What I forgot to mention was, before she was able to browse the simple page on my server, she had me set up some type of dialup adapter in my network. So I had the LAN adapter and the one she had me set up.

So: Create new connection -> Connect to the internet -> Setup my connection manually -> Connect using broadband that requires user name and password ... and so on.

This did not sound right to me, but it worked. Only problem was, I had no router, no network. Using the router and trying to connect with this also did not work.

I know that there is a better way of doing this, so I went ahead and redid everything again to be able to surf without this adapter and setting up the modem and the router again. Now it is only a matter of getting the IP to come through to my system.

I am thinking that it must be something that has to do with the router allowing the IP to come through rather than it sending its own IP back to the system. At least this is what I see through ipconfig.

This is a programmer that never set up a network before talking. I wish it was as easy as developing an asp or windows application.

[Mntsnow]

You need to setup "Virtual Servers" in your Dlink router.... the process to do this is under the Advanced tab of the dlink interface or is found on page 21 of the manual.

[Pendragon]

I shall have to look closer at the manual. Does not seem to even be 21 pages large though. I did see the virtual server setting page on the setup, but I had no clue what that was or what the effect would be, so I did not want to mess with it until I found more information about it. I shall have to take a closer look at it when I get home later.

Have to love the internet! I just downloaded the manual to the router.

[Mntsnow]

Iam sorry I was refering to the PDF version of the manual. which can be found at http://www.dlink.com/products/support.asp?pid=62&sec=0#quickInstallGuides

[Mntsnow]

From the manual....

The DI-604 can be configured as a virtual server so that remote users
accessing Web or FTP services via the public IP address can be
automatically redirected to local servers in the LAN network.
The DI-604 firewall feature filters out unrecognized packets to protect your
LAN network so all computers networked with the DI-604 are invisible to
the outside world. If you wish, you can make some of the LAN computers
accessible from the Internet by enabling Virtual Server. Depending on the
requested service, the DI-604 redirects the external service request to the
appropriate server within the LAN network.
The DI-604 is also capable of port-redirection meaning incoming traffic to
a particular port may be redirected to a different port on the server
computer

Each virtual service that is created will be listed at the bottom of the
screen in the Virtual Servers List. There are already pre-defined virtual
services already in the table. You may use them by enabling them and
assigning the server IP to use that particular virtual service.
Name: The name referencing the virtual service.
Private IP: The server computer in the LAN network that will be providing
the virtual services.
Private Port: The port number of the service used by the Private IP
computer.
Protocol Type: The protocol used for the virtual service.
Public Port: The port number on the WAN side that will be used to access
the virtual service.
Schedule: The schedule of time when the virtual service will be enabled.
The schedule may be set to Always, which will allow the particular service
to always be enabled. If it is set to Time, select the time frame for the
service to be enabled. If the system time is outside of the scheduled time,
the service will we disabled.
Example #1:
If you have a Web server that you wanted Internet users to access at all
times, you would need to enable it. Web (HTTP) server is on LAN
computer 192.168.0.25. HTTP uses port 80, TCP.

Name: Web Server
Private IP: 192.168.0.25
Protocol Type: TCP
Private Port: 80
Public Port: 80
Schedule: always

[Pendragon]

You are just great! Thanks so much. And I do look forward to meeting you on yahoo at some point. Now I am all excited about trying this out tonight. If you hear a big boom, then you know it was my server blowing up. :)

[Mntsnow]

Glad to be of assistance. Hopefully you will be off to the races tonight :)

[Mntsnow]

Nice to chat with you on Yahoo......

[Anthony]

Another great site dedicated to home webservers is http://www.dslwebserver.com Brian has a boat load of infomation and an active forum as well.

[Mntsnow]

Yep Brian has a great site as well and was linked to in the thread that this one was split off from since the two were not the same problem and helps prevent confusion in the future for visitors looking for answers from prior threads :)

Btw now that I'm home Jeff hows it coming along with the firmware update for the Dlink since the updated versions have direct mention of dealing with bugs in the virtual server sections :crazy:

[Anthony]

LOL my bad, helps when you read.

[Pendragon]

Well, the firmware did not upgrade and I kept getting the incompatible error by the router software. The guy from DLink managed to get me to crash the router again and I had to reset everthing. Thank goodness for the screenshots. The system is back up and running and am able to surf, but still unable to expose to the web.

They said that it might be the hardware on the router that is defect, so the next move is to either try to exchange the router or buy a new one. I seriously need to find out of my prior linksys router is burnt or not. I think I shall just go ahead and try to hitch that up again and see if it works. With Linksys I never had any serious problems like this.

I am taking Friday off so we might have more time to talk on yahoo. It was really a pleasure speaking with you.

[Pendragon]

Brian, your site was the first one I visited when first came to this forum. It is really great and thanks. I got the URL from here and loved it. Loads of excellent information!

[Pendragon]

Well, I have the day off today and I cannot seem to find the receipt for the DLink, so it means I shall be going back to LinkSys. Mntsnow, if you are on yahoo sometime today, please say hello. I am going to try to get a linksys, but I would appreciate some more advice as to whether go wireless or wired. Since I shall be getting two more systems in different rooms for the kids wireless seems quite ideal. No spaghetti problem.

[Mntsnow]

Whoohoo... Was good to talk to you on the phone while I was at work this morning. Glad to have been able to help you get up and going.

Enjoy the Linksys Wireless G router and running your own webserver now :)

[Pendragon]

Mntsnow, you are just simply the best man! You are welcome at my fire any day of the week at any time! Thanks for your help. Just cannot beat linksys and a good man to help you! grin

[Pendragon]

Just a quick FYI for those who have had the same problem as I. After resolving the server issue and came online, I found that everytime the server got rebooted, the system did not go online. The reason being that the server was assigned a different IP. The solution was to go Control Panel->Network Connections->double click onthe network connection->View the properties->View the properties of the TCP/IP (internet connection)->instead of obtaining an IP automatically, assign an IP address, subnet mask and Default gateway(the router's IP). This should eliminate the problem with the server getting a different IP with each reboot.

Thanks for all your help and let me know if I can ever be of any assistance.