G+_Gary M Bush Posted September 19, 2014 Share Posted September 19, 2014 Bear with me, as I shall try to explain. My boss wants a webserver set up on my university department. It was rebuilt as the previous RAID failed and was unrecoverable. I am not a "techie" but play around. I have installed wampserver and am choosing to use it to deploy the webserver (I know of the "badness" of doing this, however, our IT department wants to charge an unreasonable amount of money to host.) I have a static IP/domain name given by the IT dept. I will have it attached to a router (I assume with Port Forwarding enabled). The question I have is, How? do I deploy it? I want it to give "dummy" IP addresses to those accessing the webserver. Please, how do I set up Apache, the router and anything else which will make it as secure as I can? Thanks much. I have searched the Google, but only get confused, or not what I am truly looking for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Travis Hershberger Posted September 19, 2014 Share Posted September 19, 2014 Well, first things first for me. You have an IT department that obviously is not providing value to your organization if they are charging your department more to provide a simple VM instance to host a website than what it will cost you to run your own. I'll step off that soapbox tho. You're correct that you'll want a router with port forwarding enabled (80 and 443 for http and https.) If you have a router in place, the router will have that public facing IP address. Your server will have a different, internal, IP address. So you don't need to worry about providing a fake IP address to people looking at the website. If you still feel you want to use a different IP address, look for instructions on how to setup a virtual network connection in your version of Windows. You may want to buy an SSL certificate for the site, or create your own self signed cert (the self signed cert will throw warning messages in most browsers.) Some good instructions to force https that also includes SSL installation instructions: http://www.sslshopper.com/apache-redirect-http-to-https.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Gary M Bush Posted September 19, 2014 Author Share Posted September 19, 2014 Now, let me get this straight, as I can be dense at times. Hook server up to router. In the router settings, put in static IP in configuration page (this will be the public IP, or domain name, i.e. deptpage.university.edu). Reserve an internal IP address for the server in the router (i.e. 192.168.x.y). This is the internal IP which will always be given to the server's MAC address. Port forward stated ports to the internal 192.168.x.y IP address. When the public puts deptpage.university.edu in their browser they will be directed to our webserver and the pages we want them to access will be available. A question: the router will be plugged into a port that I am certain has a different IP than the static IP. Because I don't know I ask. This will have no bearing on any of the workings? Now, as for you getting off the soapbox, I say you are correct to be on it. That is kind of what we said. Now, I understand their feelings to some extent. We are using the university network and they are concerned about their security. But, let me say this, the webserver would be run virtually. They wanted $500.00 to set it up, and $125.00 a month to host. Really? I don't think so. I thank you for your input. And a question for you. I thought I saw you are a K-State Alum. True? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Gary M Bush Posted September 19, 2014 Author Share Posted September 19, 2014 My bad. First, should not have asked. Second, I got the last name wrong. Probably not you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Travis Hershberger Posted September 19, 2014 Share Posted September 19, 2014 Yes, you've got it correct. You'll be dealing with IP addresses in the router most likely. The WAN port on the router should have the static IP address assigned to it and plugged into the port IT directs you to. This is what the outside world will see except for those two exceptions I told you about before. Remember that IP addresses are not assigned to a network port, they are assigned to the device. That way you can move equipment around on the network without too much hassle. Sounds to me like some higher ups decided that "cloud" is the way to go, and then chose an expensive cloud provider. I could purchase a used with warranty server for $500, and it might be $100 a month to pay for power, cooling, and the internet connection for it. On second thought, can I talk to you're IT department? I'll host stuff for them and charge less than they're currently requesting! K-State, does that refer to the University of Akron? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Travis Hershberger Posted September 19, 2014 Share Posted September 19, 2014 I've got that information publicly viewable, no worries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Gary M Bush Posted September 25, 2014 Author Share Posted September 25, 2014 Travis, thanks for the help. It took a little more on my end, but you're input was of great help. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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