Help with Virtual Server!

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 28, 2007 Posts: 3

I need some assistance please.

I run a website from my PC and since I got Vonage last week my website now points to the Vonage hardware instead of the website. I have researched how to fix this problem I am came to the Virtual Server option, but I have a few questions.

Destination IP: Is this the internal IP assigned to the PC or the external IP assigned from the ISP??

Port: My website runs from port 81 but they have to include a range. Do I just use 81 to 81?

I tried all options and nothing seems to work. Am I doing something wrong? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Posts: 323 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jan 29, 2006 Posts: 323

You need to provide more information in order to get some help on this.

Include the following.

1. Detail what your setup looked like before Vonage. Detail how the devices were setup and in what order (ex. Cable Modem then Router then PC running website) Also include what the devices are, brand and model.

2. Detail what your setup looks like now

3. Explain which virtual server you are talking about. What you should have to do if setup port forwarding to get this to work.

If you know already how to set this up the range would just be 81 to 81, but it sounds like it isn't working so hopefully the extra information will help us understand what your setup looks like.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 28, 2007 Posts: 3

1. I was running a Cable Modem straight to the PC without a router. The domain is registered at godaddy and I had to direct the domain to my PC by IP address so it was easy, I just went to one of those sites that returned your IP. (www.whatismyip.com). I am running the website from Apache HTTP Server software.

2. Now I have the VTech IP8100-2 running from the Cable Modem and the PC running from VTech. No router again. Once I get past this confusion I may use an wireless router, but my priority is the website.

3. The virtual server I am using is built into the hardware of the VTech IP8100-2. When I type in the IP address I can log in to the options to get to the virtual server.

I hope this is clear. I really want to get this site up and running. Thanks for your help.

Posts: 323 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jan 29, 2006 Posts: 323

OK, so we are talking about the same thing then, the virtual server on this router is port forwarding.

Destination IP: This is the internal IP assigned to the PC. I would recommend that you set a static IP address so that the you don't have to change the setting. Here is a site that explains how to do this: http://portforward.com/networking/static-xp.htm

Port: Yes, just use 81 to 81.

In addition to this you need to do one more thing, get the new IP address of your router and give that to godaddy. Since you put the router in place you probably have a new IP address which is why your domain name isn't working anymore.

Log in to the Vtech configuration page and go to the Status tab. You will see a section called Internet Connection at the bottom of the page. The IP Address in this section is what you want to register with godaddy.

The only catch here is that the IP address can change from time to time, but this was also the case when you had your PC directly connected to the cable modem.

Hope this helps.

Posts: 831 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Jun 08, 2007 Posts: 831

One thought I had.

If you are trying at access the website from withinyour netork via the EXTERNAL IP, generally I find this does not work. However, accessing the web site from outside your network (via the public internet) it will work.

To access the web site within your network, you would need to use the internal network IP (192,168.xxx.xxx:81)

Perhaps someone could elaborate why this is true.

Posts: 1

OK first things first......

I will go over a few things here that I learned the hard way and then in the important notes section you will find the problems with this routers issues for those who run web servers. This is also a solution for those looking to host internal web/forum/FTP and what results to expect.

Current HW Setup:
Cable Modem(Comcast) --> D-Link(Vonage) VWR-11.4.1 -->Linksys 5 port 10/100 Workgroup Switch --> Win2k3 Server Box
also multiple computers and xbox360 connected to switch

Current SW Setup:
2k3 Server box running
Apache 2.2 with multiple virtual servers for 3 websites (Joomla, Wikimedia, and under construction)PHPbb 3 forums on port 80(http) & 443(https)
MySql on port 3306
Filezilla FTP server on port 21 (FTP)

Previous Sinerio:
Everything was working great with a Linksys WRT45G. Easy routing tables and concise port forwarding options.

Current Senerio (with new D-Link Vonage VWR-11.4.1):

In order to set up a web server and allow the outside traffic to be directed to it you must first set up a static IP address on your server. A good refresher tutorial is located here http://www.portforward.com/networking/staticip.htm

Once you have your Static IP set it is time to let the D-Link VWR-11.4.1 rout outside traffic to a specific computer on your internal network. This is called Port Forwarding. Once again referencing the web site above you can use the following link as an additional guide. http://www.portforward.com/english/routers/port_forwarding/Dlink/VWR-11.4.0/VWR-11.4.0index.htm

In this example we will use the following criteria:
Computer Static IP Information:
IP-->192.168.15.100
Subnet Mask-->255.255.255.0
Default Gateway --> 192.168.15.1 (this is the IP address of your D-Link Router)
DNS Servers --> For some reason this router assigns a DNS of the routers ip address(i.e. 192.168.15.1) I have used both the routers DNS as well as my ISP proveider DNS with exactly the same result. So, for this tutorial we will use the routers assigned DNS which is the IP address of your router (192.168.15.1). When setting up the static IP on your server you will have the option for using a second DNS, but you will leave this blank as we will be using the router.

Log into your router by entering the default ip address of 192.168.15.1 into the address bar in your web browser. this will bring up the login page to access the firmware on your router. the default user name is "user" and the default password is "user". Once you have logged into the router you are ready to start your configuration.

You do not want to have an IP conflict on your network so on the first page that appears under the title "DHCP Configuration" set the start IP address to 192.168.15.2 and the end IP address to 192.168.15.99. This will allow the assignable IP ranges to be below your static ip addresses. (IP conflicts can be messy when routing data packets)

Toward the bottom of the page you should see a list of computers connected (wired and wireless) to you router. These will probably have the names Dynamic located next to them. Located the computer that you are going to use as the server(understanding that that computer is connected to the network and turned on surfing the web), and place that computers information into the boxes under the title "To add a LAN Client, Enter IP Address and Hostname, then click Apply.".
Therefore you will enter the following information:
Enter IP Address: 192.168.15.100
Enter Hostname: The name of your computer which appears below
Enter MAC Address: the MAC address of you computer which appears below.

Once this is done click on apply to save your changes and you should see your computer under the heading "Static IP Addresses". Now this address will be available in all of the ip menus while you are navigating the firmware in the router.

Now it is time to set up the "Custom Port Forwarding". If you click on the tab at the top which says "Advanced" and then click on the tab to the left which says "Virtual Server" you will get to the Virtual Server Window. From here you will click on a yellow link that says "Custom Port Forwarding".

this will open a new page where you will fill in the following information:

Enable "Check mark"
Application: Apache1
Protocol: TCP,UDP
Source IP Address: 0.0.0.0 (Default for any computer access)
Source Netmask: 0.0.0.0 (Default for any computer access)
Destination IP Address: 192.168 .15 .100
Destination Netmask: 255.255.255.255 (you got me on this one but it works it should be 255.255.255.0)
Destination Port Start: 80
Destination Port End: 80
Destination Port Map: 80

Then Click Apply!!!
Once you do this you will see the information you put in appear at a table at the bottom of the screen.

If you want to Enter additional ports to be directed to your server then enter each one and click apply. They will appear below with the other one. In my case I have the following ports 80(HTTP) 443(HTTPS) 21 (FTP) 3306(MySQL)

Test with IP Loopback:
You can test your success by using an IP loopback. This is done by placing the following Ip address into your web browser with out the www. (i.e. "http://127.0.0.1")

Test with web server:
You can test you success by using your web server. This is done by placing the following into your web browser witout the www.(i.e. "http://localhost")

Check IP Rotation with Domain Registrar :
Now it is time for you to reset your IP address with your Domain Registrar(i.e Yahoo Domains or Go Daddy). This means that you must take your outside IP address (is located on the home page of http://portforward.com) and reset your IP at your Registrars web site so the outside world knows where to find you. This might take some time (10-20 min for yahoo domains) to propagate through the name server of your registrar.

Important Notes:

Once your Domain Name is tied to the new outside IP you will experience the dumbest thing I have ever seen. If you type in your domain name into the address line of your browser window you will get the login screen for the D-Link router and not your web site. For the life of me I can not figure out why this happens. But you can see your web site if you use the IP Loopback or Web Server test. I know that that does not sound like a big problem but I run virtual servers from apache and I am not able to view any sites accept for the main site. All virtual sites are un-viewable from within my internal network. Now, that is not the only problem as I am not receiving the site the way it is laid out and all MySQL DB connections are lost. The only way I am able to verify that everything looks good and works is to leach of another wireless network with my laptop. If you ask me this is not what I signed up for.

So hand it up to D-Link for this wonderful piece of technology which is not worth the effort I put into setting up. Sounds like a company we all know M$ Cry

I hope this helped some one out, and please post a solution if one finds a workaround for the problems states in the Important Information section.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 28, 2007 Posts: 3

It's working!

I believe it may have been working from the start. ed56 was right. I couldn't see the page internally even though I entered the external web address.

Thank you all for your help.