http://servername won't work - how will "the Internet" know exactly which computer it should be looking for just based on the name? I bet there's thousands of servers in the world called "Server" for example.

http://ipnumber could work but only if it's an external IP address. If it's an internal IP address such as 200.200.200.1 or 192.100.1.1, then that's only relevant to your LAN and Internet traffic won't see your server using that address.

Originally Posted by BigT

..........you must understand the concepts of (ports) and port forwarding. Ports are like thousands of doors onto different services a PC could run. The default port for a web server is port 80, FTP port 21 etc. The way you allow the outside world to see your web server is to tell the router, "If anything outside this network asks for web traffic on port 80 then direct it to the Windows server". This is called port forwarding. For it to work, your Windows 2000 server must have a static internal IP address. (Lets say for example 192.168.0.2) Then you must log into your router and set up the port forwarding of port 80 to 192.168.0.2

Your static public IP address will be the one given to you by your ISP. Lets say for example it is 212.132.12.1 . If you have port forwarding set up on your router properly then anyone in the world could put http://212.132.12.1 and see your Windows 2000 web server. The process is that a browser entering this initiates a connection on port 80 to your public IP address. The router, because it has port foorwarding set up says, "aha, port 80 I know that has to go to the Windows 2000 Server" and redirects traffic there.

OK if you're accessing it over the internet from home then its slightly different.

You say you've got on your router port 80 forwarded to the server's internal IP number.

From outside your network you cannot type http://servername. You can type http://ipnumber but it has to be the router's public IP address and not the IP address of the Windows 2000 server on the network. The easiest way I can think of you to find out your public IP address is the next time you're in work run a web browser on the Windows 200 server and go to http://www.whatsmyip.org/ At the very top of the page in big greyletters will be your public IP address. Now the next time you go home put that in your browser. Putting that public IP address into the browser of any machine on the internal network (including the server itself) will not show you the web site. It is internalIP used inside the network and public IP from outside.

If you get that sorted then we can move onto domain names.

you can try out abyss
http://www.aprelium.com

really easy / relaible server

mysql/php supported

also use http://no-ip.org to concel your IP

OK....went to whatismyip - wrote down the number
Came home, popped it in......Gateway Timeout


Volty

Can you send a PM to me and BigT with the IP address (I wouldn't recommend posting it in a public forum) so that we can try it and maybe get some inspiration from seeing the problem on our own screen? We're both in meetings all day Tuesday and Wednesday so it might take a little while to get back to you. Thanks

BigT replied saying that the IP number gives him a Forbidden message which is a good sign - the IP number sounds correct - I just now have to tweak a setting in IIS to make sure proper access is granted to outside users. Either that or the Router is configured to prevent outside access. IF I can sort that we may be in business!

thanks again for your help

Volty

Hi Volty - sorry I didn't get back to you but I had a busy end to last week and I've been up in London doing an exhibition all this week. I was going to tell you the same thing - I also got a 'Forbidden' message. I'll attach the screen grab if I can .........