hi,

i have some servers behind a server/router/firewall at http://alonzofretwell.com that can be accessed using port forwarding. they are working quite well.

http://alonzofretwell.com:1234 gets you to the first server behind the server/router/firewall (the former link above).

i would want to make the server at the latter link accessible with its own domain name ie http://<domainname>.com without having to add :<port> to the end of http://alonzofretwell.com because ":" is disallowed for aliasing in the a and cname records at network solutions (my dns?).

is port forwarding the best way to reach these servers behind my firewall?

is it possible to assign them their own domain name?

perhaps some method other than port forwarding should be used?


please advise.

thank you.

I use reverse proxying, this means you open one server up on your router, then reverse proxy all traffic through it, using something like squid. Take a look at this wikipedia article for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_proxy, and this: http://www.apachetutor.org/admin/reverseproxies is how you do it with apache, and this: http://www.visolve.com/squid/whitepa...verseproxy.php gives an overview with squid.

2 members found this post helpful.

hi,

i have read the pages you gave links to. and i feel like squid would give the best performance because of the reverse proxy caching feature. and squid gave good diagrams on what a configured system should look like.

those squid diagrams reflect the vision that i have for my network with the exception that the reverse proxy server will coexist with the apache2 server on the hardware that serves my main site. the squid page states this is an acceptable arrangement.

i have installed squid on the hardware that is labeled "Reverse Proxy Server" in the first diagram labeled "Typical Reverse Proxy Set-up". i am sure it will work for someone who knows how to configure it. i am reading /etc/squid/squid.conf to get into it a little more.

i am not sure where to begin other than to reread the links you gave and perhaps try to find some squid tutorials. i am confident that squid is the right tool for me to use for the objective i started this thread with.

i guess i will continue with reading http://squid-cache.org to get a handle on using it.

can you point me at anything else that would fast-track me with setting up squid as a revers proxy server?

thank you again.

Broadly, I would start with a simple squid setup, if you're running ubuntu, a simple should be enough. Make a copy of squid.conf, then play with the variables in there to see what you can make it do. Squid is primarily a web proxy server, not a reverse proxy server, even though it does both very well. See if you can setup a transparent proxy, then a non-transparent proxy, and finally a reverse proxy. This will help you see whats happening in there!

1 members found this post helpful.