Hello all,The problem I'm having is easy to describe: I have a home network that's behind a router. I have set up one of my machines to be a web server and I've configured the router's firewall to point to this machine for incoming requests on port 80. Using a web browser, I can browse to the router's external IP address and sure enough, I'm forwarded to my web server. It works great, but only if I am NOT on my local network! It only works when I use the router's external IP address and I am not at home.For example, if I am at work or at the coffee shop, I *can* browse to my router's IP external address and I see my web server. If, however, I am at home,I *cannot * use my router's external IP. From home I have to usethe web server's local IP: http://192.168.254.68. Can someone explain what's going here? Why can I only use the router's externalIP if I am outside my local network? Now, I should mention that my router, like many,is configured via a web interface. The URL is http://192.168.1.254. So, any requests to http://192.168.1.254:80go to my router's configuration panel whereas requests to http://99.141.170.98:80 get forwarded to the web server, but again, only if those requests are being made from outside my local network. Here's a summary: http://192.168.1.68 --> web server's local IP: OK http://99.141.170.98 --> router's external IP: OK from work, but not at home Here's the configuration:Web Server Machine: Virtual machine running Windows Server 2008, IIS 7Web Browser Machine: XP Pro running IE 7

Hi,T. Baxter, have you solved this problem? I am having the same problem.Has anyone got any ideas?

That is how TCP/IP and NAT routers work. If you are on the private LAN, you access local machines by their local private IP addresses. You cannot go out to the public IP address and come back in usingforwarding.

You have to configure and use NAT and port forwarding in Router which connect to WAN (Internet). Please check on implementing NAT as well as port forwarding in router .. Google it.

I am having the same problem as well. On my router, port-forwarding is enabled and firewall is set to allow connections to my home web server. But... THE PROBLEM To access my web server from behind the same router as my web server, I CAN use the web servers LOCAL (LAN) IP to connect, but I can NOT use the web servers EXTERNAL (WAN) IP (or domain name) to connect. I am confused, as I did NOT have this problem with different web server setups. (External IP would serve my webpage regardless of where it was requested from) The two things that were different were (A) router and (B) Web Server Software. I went through some tech support to explore the possibility of (A) being the problem, but they couldnt offer me anything. I think it is probably (B), the Web Server software. I also am using Microsoft IIS7. With Aprelium Abyss there was no problem. I am only guessing that IIS filters and blocks connections attempted through redundant routes. If you want to connect to your web server from behind the router, it would be inefficient to send the data out of the LAN and back in again. (Not that I think IIS should deny these connections when they are requestion) THE FIX (sort of) For each computer behind the router, add a line to the windows "hosts" file to tell the computer to resolve a specified domain name to a specified IP, instead of using the DNS. Since we specify the IP address, we can use the local IP instead of the external IP. ****This way we can access our web server by its public domain name from behind the same router!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But, we still can't access it by external (WAN) IP. THE STEPS 1. Open the file "c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts" (That is the FILENAME, not the directory. The filename has no extension) 2. On a new line at the end of the file, type the local ip, then a space, then the domain name. For example: 192.168.0.87 zenflow.servehttp.com 3. Save the file and try connecting to the domain name in your browser Hope this helps someone (as im sure askmeagain's post did NOT. If you bother to post on something you should at least attempt to understand what the situation is, instead of throwing out random guesses to what the problem may be, even if it can be ruled out.) askmeagain: if you (re-)read T. Baxter's post, doesn't he make it perfectly clear that he already configured port forwarding?