Hey everyone, I am a noob to windows server 2008. I've been playing with it now for a couple days, figuring things out, setting stuff up and just getting a hand on things. I am fairly new to this scene (running a web server and playing with windows server) and I do plan on starting school for it to further learn it, but I'm impatient and enjoy learning things on my own. :P Now, I have a few concerns. I'm not sure if this would be the proper place to ask these questions and concerns but hopefully someone can maybe help. As I stated, I've setup quite a bit of stuff. I've setup Apache (2.2.15), PHP 5.2.13 and MySQL 5.1, wasn't that difficult, works fine. But my problem with it is I can load into my local (static) ip on my server (192.168.0.181) and it'll load up the site. Partially. Would anyone know what could be causing that? That was my first concern. My second concern is, I've finally gotten it to where i could load into the website (local only) via my external IP, mostly because it's doing a local loop back through my external allowing me on, had a friend try via my external, no luck. I did setup a DNS server on server 2008 and it appears to be running fine. I put the server name in the httpd file in Apache and it loads up just fine. Just cannot access it via the DNS, from anywhere. Not sure what's going on there. Lastly, I did talk to a friend whos in IT and I asked him, "Hey, I've got a server setup and running but I can't seem to get it to communicate out to the world. I thought it may have been port 80 because I opened all ports on all firewalls and it's still not working" He told me to install IIS, so I did. Did Server Management -> Roles -> Add Role -> Web Server (IIS) and once there, selected ASP.NET which, of course selected some other options as well. This is what the confirmation page had: Web Server: Common HTTP Features Static Content Default Document Directory Browsing HTTP Errors Application Development ASP.NET .NET Extensibility ISAPI Extensions ISAPI Filters Health and Diagnostics HTTP Logging Request Monitor Security Request Filtering Performance Static Content Compression Management Tools IIS Management Console Clicked on install, said "Installation succeeded". Click "close" goes back to the Roles page, and right next to Web Server (IIS) is just a big Red 'X'. I click it to bring up the event viewer, take a look at what's going on and I have an error with Event ID 1004 "The World Wide Web Publishing Service (WWW Service) did not register the URL prefix http://*:80/ for site 1. The site has been disabled. The data field contains the error number." I tried Googling around to see if I could find anything but I could not. Maybe I did but I just didn't realize it? Again as I stated above, I'm still an amateur at this and am still in the learning process. Anyways, any input anyone has or any sort of help anyone may have to give me is greatly appreciated and helps me further my learning experience with the above topics. If this is out of the scope of support for this web site, I do apologize, but thank you for any help.

Hello, if i understand you correct you have installed a server for hosting a webpage. "But my problem with it is I can load into my local (static) ip on my server (192.168.0.181) and it'll load up the site. Partially. Would anyone know what could be causing that?" What does this mean in detail? Aren't you able to create a webpage to show something? Do you talk here bout openening the webpage from another machine only with ip address and not website name? "My second concern is, I've finally gotten it to where i could load into the website (local only) via my external IP, mostly because it's doing a local loop back through my external allowing me on, had a friend try via my external, no luck. I did setup a DNS server on server 2008 and it appears to be running fine. I put the server name in the httpd file in Apache and it loads up just fine. Just cannot access it via the DNS, from anywhere. Not sure what's going on there" Does this mean you try to access the internal webserver from the outside with the ip address you got form the ISP? Is your router configured with port forwarding to the webserver for port 80/443? Did you talk to the ISP to configure it's own DNS servers to forward the DNS name to your router? IIS is a web server solution as Apache just the Microsoft way. So if the ISP has setup DNS to forward to your ip address a configured web page should be opened also with Apache and IIS is not used.Best regards Meinolf Weber Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

"What does this mean in detail? Aren't you able to create a webpage to show something? Do you talk here bout openening the webpage from another machine only with ip address and not website name?" I have a PHP based forum setup to where you load up the site it goes directly to the forums, no sub directory, for instance www.hostname.com/ not www.hostname.com/forums. And yes, it only opens with the IP and not the website name via the DNS I have setup on the server. "Does this mean you try to access the internal webserver from the outside with the ip address you got form the ISP? Is your router configured with port forwarding to the webserver for port 80/443? Did you talk to the ISP to configure it's own DNS servers to forward the DNS name to your router?" Yes, I'm was having a friend try to connect to my webserver from outside my network to see if it would work as I do not have a secondary connection I could try this with for myself. I have port 80 open, have not done 443 but will plug that in as well. The communication with my ISP will be a bit interesting as I'm on my roommates internet (good friend, he knows whats going on and what I'm doing) and he works for my ISP and I'm not sure how I would go about talking to them, so trying what I can right now by myself without contacting them. Can ask my roommate what I should do if I must contact them though. "IIS is a web server solution as Apache just the Microsoft way. So if the ISP has setup DNS to forward to your ip address a configured web page should be opened also with Apache and IIS is not used." Alright, I went ahead and removed IIS. Like I said before, I'll see what my roommate says about me contacting them for that information. Just as a side note too, we have the main modem, a router in the living room (Netgear WNR-2000) and one here in my room (D-Link DGL-4300) acting as a hub since the router in the living room has all its ports occupied. The router here in my room is configured properly for this, and I have opened all the same ports on both routers as well as the windows Firewall. Thank you for your reply

Hello, if you don't have a domain name reserved with your/your friends ISP, you can also think about something like dyndns.org or another free solution, to get a free name and configure the access via the router without having to buy a domain name. Having an internal DNS server doesn't mean you can access the website from outside. This requires an official registered domain name from the ISP or with dyndns.org or another free solution. Internally you should configure a DNS zone containing the web server or create an A record named "www" without the quotes pointing to the web server ip address. Best regards Meinolf Weber Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

Thank you very much for your help! I just have one last concern that maybe you can help out with? I got it working through DynDNS.com so it officially loads up on there, but the website still is not displaying properly. It's all text. It's missing graphics, images, etc. I have all files in their proper folders and everything, just not sure why its not loading up. Again on the server its self if i go to http://localhost it'll load up fine, because obviously its on the server. Just externally it doesn't want to load them up. Not sure what's going on. --------------------------------------------------- Okay I got it fixed. I just removed the files and reinstalled the forums and its displaying properly now. Now the only problem is people are saying it's still not loading externally.

Hello, if it works internal complete and only external not it can be a problem with the firewall. But for needed Apache ports you should maybe use a forum about Apache, this sounds for me the better place.Best regards Meinolf Weber Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights.

Alright, thank you very much again for your help, you've been a great help. I'll go over to their forums or a similar forum and see what they have to say.