Can't view my own site on local network

[Celegorm]

Ok, so I have a difficult one for you guys that I can't figure out. My windows home server comes with a domain name that works out to be <domain>.homeserver.com

I can't seem to connect to the page from my local network (aka, at my apartment). However when I leave my apartment I can view the site and do whatever I want with it. My main point of using the site is as an SVN server so I need to be able to type the url in from my local network.

I've played with all the security settings in the router but can't figure out why it can't connect while local but is free to connect while I'm out of my apartment.

Ideas on things I could try so it's available on-site again?

 

[The_Lucas]

Have you checked your firewall settings?
Also, what are the settings you used to set up port forwarding?

 

[JCB1]

some ideas on the top of my head

-Maybe when your on the LAN its using an internal DNS entry which is different to the external one? Ping the domain name when you are on the LAN and WAN, are they the same ip ?
-Can you telnet to port 80 on the LAN intrnally and externally?
-Does the host have firewall started (In windows and any AV you might have installed) if yes stop it and try internally
-Is ISA installed on the server? If yes I bet you need to add the "Internal Traffic" network in to one of the rules
-Get an RJ45 cable and plug one end in to the server and the other in to another computer, then give the computer the same subnet + a different IP address. You should then be able to ping the server, can you browse to the site now? This can rule out networking if it doesnt work, if it does work there is a network issue

-What OS is the server?

 

[Celegorm]

The firewall is open, I can do anything and everything remotely and I can access any shared folders on it (also available through the site). I have forwarded ports 80,443, and 8443 from any host (internal and external) to the server at 192.168.248 which is that static IP of the server on my network.

JCB,
When I ping, the IP always resolves to the same IP.
I have telnet disabled on the server. It's always been disabled, even when I could reach it internally.
No OS based firewall, and the anti-virus does not have one either
I'm not sure honestly. I've never had to touch it, it just simply worked in the past.
I'm not sure I understand what you are suggesting with the network cable Idea.

The server itself is a Windows Home Server.

I should also make sure it's clear because reading through I don't think I did in my first post, This was working internally at one point. The only "change" has been moving apartments but all hardware has remained the same, even the network cables. I would have expected the move to affect outside traffic coming in, not inside staying in. I am still able to access all other services that the server provides while I'm at my apartment, just not the webpage. This is an issue since anything I do in my SVN needs to see that URL, no matter where I am.

 

[J03]

This is fairly normal behaviour. I can't remember the exact reason for it... I think that it might have been to do with NAT/Your routers firewall.

When you try and access it with your domain name, the DNS lookup will report your external IP address as the IP address associated with the domain (because of the A Record). Because your machine is INSIDE your network, traffic will not pass through your firewall - and as a result, the port-forward you created for your WHS box isn't "seen" by your computer.

If you add a line like this:

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx domain.homeserver.com

where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the INTERNAL IP of your server, to your hosts file (C:/Windows/System32/Drivers/etc/hosts under windows, /etc/hosts for Unix like systems (incl. OSX)), then your computer will ignore the IP address reported by the DNS server, and you should be able to access the server through the domain name.

My reasoning for this might not be totally correct... but I think that's the jist of it!

I hope that this works for you... my know how you get on with it

Obviously this isn't quite ideal if you're on a portable machine, since you'll have to keep changing the hosts file... but it's a fix, none the less. Someone should build a hosts-file selector!

 

[Celegorm]

Sorry for the delay in my response.

I've tried playing with the hosts file and that does not appear to have helped. I've added the line 184.59.X.X <domain>.homeserver.com and it still will not connect. I see no NAT settings in my router to play with, and tried completely disabling the router's firewall.

As an aside, when editing the hosts file, I restarted after the edit, and flushed the dns.

 

[J03]

184.59.xx.xx isn't the internal IP of your server - I mean like... 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x or 172.16.x.x.x

 

[Celegorm]

Ah well that would make a lot of sense actually... I'll give that a shot and see how things work while mobile.

Thanks!

 

[Celegorm]

Sorry for the delay (again), I've been scatter-brained prepping for my girlfriends return from france.

That did fix the issue, but as you mentioned it's then a problem with the hosts entry while off-site. I tried putting both local and public IPs in, in the hopes that things would detect properly... Needless to say it was a vain hope, but I had to try.

I guess I'll just have to suck it up and and use something like Himanchi to make this work consistently.

Thanks for all of your time!

 

[Celegorm]

Well now I just feel like a moron...

It dawned on my last night that about two weeks before I moved, I upgraded my firmware to DD-WRT. As much as I remembered testing it to make sure everythign worked, I don't recall ever testing to make sure the SVN stuff still worked. So I flashed back to my Linksys firmware... Now everything works... Bad build most likely but it still sucks. So now I'll walk away with my tail between my legs for not testing properly when I did the flash.