Topic: My question has a simple answer, I'm sure

[tycoonbob]

Ok, so I have a homeserver running server 2008 r2, and host a website off of it with apache 2.2. That works fine, has been for a while. I recently installed vmware on this server, installed a WinXP guest, installed apache, and trying to configure it to work off port 81. I can access it on my local network, but trying to navigate to my 'ip:81' outside my lan, isn't working. I have forward port 81 for the ip of my guest vm. If it matters, the guest has a static ip of 192.168.1.101 for my lan. I have changed the listening port to 81, as well as the servername to localhost:81.

What else must be done to make it work on an outside network?
Other info, i do have a sticky IP, but I use a dyndns service which has been working on my original website.
Thanks!

[James Blond]

Which networktype do you use for that vm guest?

[tycoonbob]

I'm using VMnet0, as it's bridged. The host has a static IP of 192.168.1.100, and the guest has a static ip of 192.168.1.101. Both can access the internet, and I can remote into both of them from one of my workstations (that has a static ip of 192.168.1.99). Any ideas?

[tycoonbob]

anyone?

[James Blond]

From that what I've read the issue should be to find in your router or firewall if you have one. Or is the server without a router / external firewall in the internet? Also you could check what happens if you temporaly disable the windows firewall. Maybe an issue can be that your ISP might block some ports.

[tycoonbob]

Well, I also assumed it was a router/firewall issue, but I do have my server (192.168.1.100) set as a dmz, and for testing purposing turned windows firewall off. My website worked, but my Windows XP guest (192.168.1.101) did not. In the XP guest, had windows firewall off, forward port 81 on my router, but not sure what else I can do. I have done port scans, and even telneted my ip from work to verify port 81 is open. Pretty sure I'm just gonna give up and throw together another server. Thanks for your help though.

[glsmith]

Did you forward the port through Windows firewall? I've found turning it off really doesn't turn it off, it still blocks everything it blocked before, and locks it in.

One suggestion might be instead of opening a port in the thing, add httpd.exe as a program. I consistently have to do this every time I install VNC on a XP system, for what I believe is this same reason;

I think what happens is on first run, if Apache is being run as a service, the SYSTEM user get's the block/unblock dialog, not you. Since there is no physical user named SYSTEM, you can see the problem, no one to click the "Unblock" button.

On any Windows computer I always test first by starting Apache at the command line, that way I do get the dialog and I can click "Unblock."