Hi,
I have a linksys BEFSR41 router and a netware 5.1 running a Netscape Enterprise Web server. The problem is that people can't access my web server.
Catch: If I run a windows 9X, NT or 2000 on the same subnet they can access.
The reason for getting a router was to eliminate the need of running a workstation as proxy.

Has anybody encountered this problem, and do you have a solution?

Thanks...

Yes I have the same problem I can at first try get it to load the first page but from there on out I can not go any further but I have no solution.

Both of the problems are the same. You don't have a Public IP address associated with the Private IP address of the web server at the router level.

This translation is called Network Address Translation - or: NAT

The idea is that the router associates a Public IP address (hopefully you have at least ONE static IP address from your ISP) - to your web servers Private IP address.

Next, the router must be configured to allow TCP port 80 to communicate thru that Private IP address. If you don't, then HTTP cannot communicate. If you want to use HTTPS and SSL then you must also allow TCP port 443 thru.

The last step is to tell your ISP (who should be hosting your domain name) to associate the www. with the Public IP address - this will allow users to type in a name in the URL field of their web browsers instead of an IP address.

The reason users on the LAN can see it is because they are part of the same network segment. The Internet is a separate segment and the router has not been configured to allow the translation.

Remember, you need at least ONE static IP address from your ISP - you cannot use Dynamic IP addressing for your Public IP address.

I have tried all that. Presently I am forwarding Ports 21,80,443 to my server at IP 192.168.1.110 my router internal IP is 192.168.1.1 using 255.255.255.0 as subnet.

Thanks...

I hope this helps...

I have the same router (BEFSR41 v2) and NetWare 5.1 and have the Netscape Webserver accessible to the public network and private network.

The whole idea is to make your TCP/IP environment and the Netscape Web Server think that the NetWare host has the publicly known hostname that your ISP has provided you with.

Public hostname issued by my ISP:
cr741357-a.wlfdle1.on.wave.home.com

Public IP address:
DHCP assigned.

Linksys router - Private address:
198.168.1.1

NetWare Host - Local IP address (Private):
198.168.1.51

NetWare Host - Gateway address:
198.168.1.1

NetWare Host - Subnetwork mask:
255.255.255.0

Linksys ports open 80 and 443 mapped to 192.168.1.51 (Both TCP and UDP)

The NetWare BIND command is:
BIND IP 3C90X_1_EII MASK=255.255.255.0 GATE=192.168.1.1 ADDRESS=192.168.1.51

In Netscape's MAGNUS.CONF file I made certain that the parameter value of ServerName was the hostname (including domain) provided by my ISP.

In the NetWare HOSTS file I added my ISP hostname to the list of aliases for 192.168.1.51

In the NetWare RESOLV.CFG file I added the domain of ISP provider. I probably used INETCFG to do this, I don't remember now.

In the NetWare RESOLV.CFG file I added the nameservers provided by my ISP. I probably used INETCFG to do this, I don't remember now.

Within NetWare's INETCFG.NLM utility I selected Protocols->TCP/IP and then changed the value of IP Packet Forwarding to:
'Disabled("End Node")'

NOTE: Within the same screen of the INETCFG utility you can set the domain and nameserver ip addresses that will end up in the RESOLV.CFG file by selecting the screen:
'DNS Resolver Configuration'

Keep in mind that as far as your ISP is concerned the Linksys router is the host associated to the public hostname they have provided you.

WARNING: If the public user is going through a firewall on their side, their firewall may be causing problems and not your setup.

WARNING: The BEFSR41 does not like it when you use your ISP's nameserver to resolve a public hostname back to a host that is on your private network. In my case, public users would loose connectivity to any of my machines within the private network when I did this. The BEFSR41 would have to be rebooted so that public users could again connect to the server. This is a limitation of the router.

To work around this problem, I included an entry for the public hostname of the NetWare server in the local HOSTS file of each client machine that is part of the private network and associated the NetWare server's private IP address (192.168.1.51) to the public hostname (cr741357-a.wlfdle1.on.wave.home.com).

Correction:

I noticed that I type 198.168... where I should have typed 192.168... in some places in my previous entry.

As long as you have a static hostname provided by your ISP, then the setup I have described should work for you as well.

If both the hostname and IP address provided by your ISP are dynamic, then they have made it virtually impossible for their customers to host any services.

One problem that I have encountered which is maybe not a problem with the Wib Server is with the NetWare Management Portal screens. They use redirects and these redirects provide the private IP address and not the public IP address of the host to go to.

So far I haven't found a solution to effectively using this the NetWare Management Portal from the public network. Mind you, if I was mode HTML savvy I probably would setup my own static SSL protected webpages to use Server Side Includes to do simple tasks like startup and shutdown the server remotely.