pariah911 Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Firstly, apologies for length - but it annoys me when I see questions asked with very little detail... My little project started out as a small knowledge base for a dozen people. FC5 / Apache 2.2.2 / PHP 5.1.6 / mysql 5.0.27 Utilising mediaWiki Access was purely via IP on the local network. It was nice. It was small. It was compact. It was easy. The somebody decided it would be a great idea to expand it to the rest of the department, then the division, then the state, then Australia wide - with external access via the internet. It now runs 10+ full time applications ( including mediaWIKI, iCalendar for scheduling, phpGallery, php121 IM software, various ODBC connections to the companies msSQL servers, ... ) plus a large number of php scripts etc that automate a lot of repetitive functions. A backup of the datafiles alone is 200+ Gb ! Considering I have had to learn a lot of this from scratch, I am surprised it has done so well for the last 3 years. My issue is probably very simply solved, but I have been unable to decide on a correct course of action. A "brief" topology : The server sits inside the network - let's call it 192.168.10.123 This was fine when it was only being accessed by 10 of us Other divisions in different states are on subnets ( eg 192.168.20.X ) which do not have access to the servers subnet - unfortunately this behaviour cannot be changed as it has something to do with proprietary software the company uses From my understanding, company.com.au ( 203.X.X.X ) is hosted on a local machine too ( 192.168.10.11 ) So to give these subnets access, they access the companies main website using wiki.company.com.au:82 - note the :82 One or other of these machines does a portforward to 192.168.10.123:82 ( which Apache is listening on ) There is also a proxy server mixed in there somewhere ( 192.168.10.3 ) which is where all internet connections into the server appear to come from. Well, it is a bit slow ... So, anybody in the local division ( 192.168.10.X ) connects to the server using the private IP - and the other subnets / external users have to use the port forwarded URL And this all works fine With some exceptions Some of the applications insist on using full path names when referencing matrial - others use relative path names This is what is creating the hassles If I connect via internet I can do 98% of things - but some resources cannot be accessed externally because they have a private URL I want to make it so that the server has 1 address So that ALL connections are via this address I think my issue is that currently it thinks it has 2 - depending on where the connection is coming from Once again, apologies for length Thanx Tim A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steviewdr Posted April 14, 2007 Share Posted April 14, 2007 Some of the applications insist on using full path names when referencing matrial - others use relative path names This is what is creating the hassles If I connect via internet I can do 98% of things - but some resources cannot be accessed externally because they have a private URL Can you not decide on a fixed domain name for accessing all applications? I.e: www.mediawiki1.server.com and have that as the address for apache with a mod_proxy enabled? There are web vpn apps which can put a url like: www.vpn.server.com/access/http://internal.server.name/directpath/index?test but they are not very robust in my opinion. Quite frankly, it would be easier to beat the applications to using 1 fixed url address. -steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_oliver Posted April 16, 2007 Share Posted April 16, 2007 I think that the simplest way to solve these problems would be to do all the port forwording, and anything the proxi currently does through a router. This would solve the diffrent subnet problems. If everything pointed to the address of this router then your server is always dealing with the same, single, internal ip and doesn't have to worry about anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pariah911 Posted April 17, 2007 Author Share Posted April 17, 2007 Thanx for the quick replies the_oliver : unfortunately I cannot change any of ITs existing set up ... they put up with errors on cerberus for 2 years ... until i created the missing directory for them ... so it is best not to go there at all :-\ steviewdr : excuse me if i don't seem to immediately grasp things ... and seem to go the long way around ... but I like to know "why" not just take something for granted Have spent last night reading up on mod_proxy and then got side tracked with virtual servers, mod_rewrite and even more esoteric / confusing things If it solves my problems, I will happily drop accessing the server by private IP - even if it means IT have to go and work out how to fix the slowness of their proxy ( said with gritted teeth ) /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost 192.168.10.123 wiki.COMPANY.com.au 192.168.10.3 mail.COMPANY.com.au /etc/sysconfig/network HOSTNAME=wiki.COMPANY.com.au /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf Listen 80 # for internal Listen 82 # for external from proxy server ServerName wiki.COMPANY.com.au:80 From the above, I keep thinking the trouble I have is that internally the server name resolves to a private IP, while externally it resolves to the FQDN of the company I keep reading up on virtual server and wondering if i make it so, and add a rewrite for internal access, that it would work Does i t sound like I am totally confused at this stage ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.