Topic: Using SME when your website is ISP hosted

[Cyrus Bharda]

Yeah sorry Ed, now all I gotta do is to figure out how to configure this i-bay to do what I need, which at the moment I dunno how, and I wish I could get ADSL, I am half way between brisbane and the gold coast, damn tel$tra tells me I cannt get it!!!

Anyway if you still wanna help out, new thread is here:

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=6846.msg24665#msg24665

Thanks again!

Cyrus Bharda

[Ed Form]

Hi Kelvin,

You said...

> I'm not certain of the need.
>
> If you configure your SME server to have your actual domain
> name, you can go to hostnames and addresses under server
> manager and point the www entry back to your ISP hosted
> website, which solves the problem of local users not being able
> to access the company website.

I was aware of this, but what I couldn't get to work were the other
aspects of remote hosting - uploading stuff to the site, and running the control panel that the ISP provides for setting up mail users etc.

When I alter the ftp hostname to remote and give the correct IP address for uploading to my site it doesn't work, just announces that the URL isn't available.

My ISP provides me with a virtual control panel at cp.mydomain.co.uk where  I can do all sorts of good stuff. When I call it it isn't available and when I try to create a new remote hostname *cp* the server manager just barfs and won't let me do it.

So, as I want to be able to provide my clients with the ability to
maintain their own websites I gave up on this approach some time ago.

> And depending on your ISP / domain host, you could either :-
>
> 1. Have the ISP / domain host list your SME as the primary MX
> (even on dial-up and even if you use Dynamic DNS services)

I'm not sure why I would want to do that. Part-time mail servers are rejected by half the ISPs on the planet. The situation I'm interested in is where mail serving has to be done at the ISP.

> 2. Use multidrop as you have done in your How-to (although I
> much prefer Vincent's multidrop addin over the dugong's one).

I used *multipop* [not multidrop] in order to have every user's mail collected seperately. This solves the mailing list message sorting problem that multidrop produces, because the ISP sorts the stuff off his incoming ETRN, and puts it in the correct boxes. It's also cheaper than having a fixed IP address and an ETRN stream from an ISP, which typically costs - about 10 UK pounds/month on a dialup account in the UK. Fixed IP addresses
are 10 UK pounds per year on broadband, but I have very few broadband customers due to the galactically stupid attitude of British Telecom, and its appalling recent business performance that has crippled its ability to borrow the money needed to update its tin-can and string infrastructure.

Nevertheless, I have no wish to perpetuate a Howto that isn't needed. If you know how to allow users downstream of an SME server to update, control, and browse an ISP hosted website with the same domain name as the SME server, I'd love to know about it, and I'm sure quite a few others would also.

Ed Form

[Ed Form]

Ray Mitchell wrote:
>
> Dear Ed & Kelvin
>
> You can also quite simply put a one line entry in an index
> page in /primary/html which points to your outside hosted web
> site ie www.outsidehostdomainname.com.
>
> That way you can have the majority of your web site on an
> external host site, but still have pages on your sme server
> like www.yourdomain.com/otherstuff, and host your own domain
> based email as well.

Links in the external webpages will keeping returning you to the internal site with URL not found.

Ed Form

[Ed Form]

Ray Mitchell wrote:
>
> Cyrus
> As I understand it. Kelvin is correct to say that anything
> you want to be private, you should put in an ibay which is
> password protected set to say Entire internet (password
> required outside local network). This would allow your local
> users to access it via www.yourdomain.com/ibayname without
> needing a password whereas external users would need to enter
> a password....

I'm starting to get confused here. The original Howto was for people who *cannot* present their SME server to the outside world under any circumstances because permanent connections of any kind cost so much they are unnaceptable and cheap broadband isn't available, and who want to use company domain email addresses for everything.

Kelvin's suggestion of making entries in the 'hostnames and addresses' section of the Server Manager certainly allows users inside the SME's network to see the externally hosted site, but I knew that anyway. What it doesn't do, unless I'm to thick to work out how to set it up, is allow them to upload to the site, and it certainly doesn't allow them to get at things like domain control panels provided by the ISP. The method in the Howto does, and it also solves multidrop sorting difficulties, which are the bane of my life at my one live site.

ed Form

[Ed Form]

Kelvin wrote:
>
> Ok, to be fair, I must apologise to Ed who started this
> thread. This discussion has deviated slightly from his
> original posting.
>
> Next time, we'll start a new thread.

Don't apologise. It's good stuff but doesn't actually answer my original problem.

Ed Form

[Kelvin]

Hi Ed,

I will give you an example from the many clients I have in a working setup like this.

One such web host in Oz is WebCentral. They have a "mission control" interface (web driven) which allows the user to log in and configure aspects of their hosted domains. This includes setting up how you want the web site hosted (by them or by you), how you want the mail hosted and so on.

Once configured with hostnames and addresses in server-manager, my clients can use their inhouse web design packages (I usually recommend Netobject Fusion or NOF for short) to upload and maintain their websites which are located with the Web host, no hassles at all. For example, in NOF, you can tell the software your website is called www.mydomain.com, give it the access username and password and NOF will happily ftp you web design to your website - like I said, no hassles.

As for hosting their own mails, I've yet to receive any complains. You *might* hit a problem sending out mails (I've only had one site out of so many) which then requires you to set your SME server to deliver all outgoing mails to your ISP's mail server for final delivery, but so far, never a problem when receiving mails (I don't think ISPs know / care that they are delivering to "part-time" mail servers - though they *might* care if they are receiving *from* "part-time" mail servers). WebCentral also provides Backup MX services as well if your mail server appears to be offline or unreachable. And as I have mentioned in my original post, you don't necessarily need a fixed IP address to host your own domain mail either. If your domain host (DNS provider) will not allow you to use dynamic addresses, choose another provider. I don't know about the UK but OZ hosts tend to be fairly flexible especially when they know the person who is asking appears to know what he's talking about.

Kelvin

[Ed Form]

Kelvin wrote:
>
> Hi Ed,
>
> I will give you an example from the many clients I have in a
> working setup like this....
>
>....I don't know about the UK but OZ hosts tend to be
> fairly flexible especially when they know the person who is
> asking appears to know what he's talking about.

I shall give all this a serious try in the next couple of days.

Thanks

Ed Form

[Ed Form]

Kelvin wrote:

> I will give you an example from the many clients I have in a
> working setup like this...

there is another complication in all this. SME isn't very good at clearing up after itself. I've reconfigured my machine a couple of times int he last 24 hours and the Virtualdomains file has turned into a quagmire...

wgs.com:alias-localdelivery
e-smith.wgs.com:alias-localdelivery
e-smith.workgroupsolutions.co.uk:alias-localdelivery
ftp.wgs.com:alias-localdelivery
ftp.workgroupsolutions.co.uk:alias-localdelivery
mail.wgs.com:alias-localdelivery
mail.workgroupsolutions.co.uk:alias-localdelivery
proxy.wgs.com:alias-localdelivery
proxy.workgroupsolutions.co.uk:alias-localdelivery
wpad.wgs.com:alias-localdelivery
wpad.workgroupsolutions.co.uk:alias-localdelivery
www.wgs.com:alias-localdelivery
www.workgroupsolutions.co.uk:alias-localdelivery
workgroupsolutions.co.uk:alias-localdelivery
gopaperless.co.uk:alias-localdelivery

The last two lines are the ones added by my 90aliases template fragment but the presence of both wgs.com [my inhouse domain name] and workgroupsolutions.co.uk [my company domain] in the rest of the file would seem to indicate that the system doesn't forget old domain names when it has the name changed in the configuration sequence. What now happens is that my system can see workgroupsolutions.co.uk whether or not I have the remote setting for www in hostnames and addresses.

I'll have to reload the server from scratch and set it up as you suggested.

Ed Form

[Cyrus Bharda]

OK Ray I got a question,

I did remove the www.langs.net.au entry in the hostnames and address but then my forwarder didnt work, it was trying to forward it to www.langs.net.au which it is, so I am not too sure about the forwarding as our "proper" web site is actually being hosted at a host (CIA), _not_ an ISP (www.ozemail.com.au/~blah).

So I tryed looking up the ip that I should be forwarding to but all I get is this stupid picture, not my companies web site?!?!?!?!!? Check it out:

[root@esmith root]# dig @ozemail.com.au langs.net.au

; <<>> DiG 9.1.3 <<>> @ozemail.com.au langs.net.au
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 46572
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;langs.net.au.                  IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
langs.net.au.           7762    IN      A       203.63.219.194

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
langs.net.au.           11040   IN      NS      spook.cia.com.au.
langs.net.au.           11040   IN      NS      snoop.cia.com.au.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
spook.cia.com.au.       18013   IN      A       203.17.36.1
snoop.cia.com.au.       18013   IN      A       203.17.36.2

;; Query time: 226 msec
;; SERVER: 203.2.194.3#53(ozemail.com.au)
;; WHEN: Wed Feb 19 12:17:40 2003
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 128

So try opening http://203.63.219.194/ in your web browser, hmmmmmm?!?!? So how do I set the forwarder to point to my companies real page?

And do I need to set a forwarder for each and every file, eg if someone tryes to go to www.langs.net.au/fubar will i need to put a forwarder on the sme box in the /primary/html/fubar dir so that they dont get a file not found error?

This of course will only apply to poeple internally trying to access out own website, thats why I thought that the entry in the hostnames is much easier, then if someone internally try's to open http://www.langs.net.au/* it will be loaded from our hosts server not the SME.

Right???
Thanks for your help!

Cyrus Bharda

[Ray Mitchell]

Cyrus & Ed
Read my post again
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=6842.msg24626#msg24626

Of course you cannot have 2 locations that are both called www.mydomain.com.

The way I am suggesting is that your sme server is www.mydomain.com and it is the only place that domain exists. If you have an existing domain name hosted elswhere, then that needs to change ie it does not need to be a hosted domain, but can just be www.ozemail.com.au/cyrus or whatever, just an ISP hosting your pages at any arbitrary site and name you choose.

The sme's /primary/html/index.html points to www.ozemail.com.au/cyrus

Thus requests for www.mydomain.com.au are forwarded to www.ozemail.com.au/cyrus, which has the majority of the web site hosted for www.mydomain.com.

Unless you want them you do not need to create any other folder and pages in /primary/..... or any ibays for that matter either.

All other requests will go directly to your server for all other services, as if the sme was hosting the complete domain site, which it effectively is doing

Of course you will have to change MX/DNS records and the present hosting arrangement you have for my suggestion to work.

Hope this clarifies my suggestion
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Ray Mitchell]

Cyrus
It's not the area I fully understand as yet, but if your sme server is to act as the host for www.mydomain.com, then the mx/dns records have to point to your sme server's gateway IP, (which preferably should be a static IP).
But to do this you will also have to change the domain name that is hosted elswhere, cannot have 2 the same !!
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[Ed Form]

Ray Mitchell wrote:
>
> Cyrus & Ed
> Read my post again
> http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=6842.msg24626#msg24626
>
> Of course you cannot have 2 locations that are both called
> www.mydomain.com.
>
> The way I am suggesting is that your sme server is
> www.mydomain.com and it is the only place that domain exists.
> If you have an existing domain name hosted elswhere, then
> that needs to change ie it does not need to be a hosted
> domain, but can just be www.ozemail.com.au/cyrus or whatever,
> just an ISP hosting your pages at any arbitrary site and name
> you choose.
>
> The sme's /primary/html/index.html points to
> www.ozemail.com.au/cyrus
>
> Thus requests for www.mydomain.com.au are forwarded to
> www.ozemail.com.au/cyrus, which has the majority of the web
> site hosted for www.mydomain.com.

My specific problem is with setups where the SME server cannot be on line all the time and this seems to be necessary in your scenario, but even if the SME could be online, I also have a lot of clients with webpages hosted, designed and maintained by industry specific providers. These are filled with links which point to other pages in the website, all of which would push a browsing punter back to the SME server and to a URL not found notice. If the site is designed with proper relative links this shouldn't occur, but they are often not and my clients have no say in how the site is written, they are only able to choose from a few alternative presentations and provide an amount of company specific info to be placed in template areas on thesite to give it their identity.

Ed Form

[Ray Mitchell]

Ed Form wrote:
> My specific problem is with setups where the SME server
> cannot be on line all the time and this seems to be necessary
> in your scenario

Yes Ed that is correct, a permanent dial up modem connection or low end ADSL work OK.

> If the site is designed with
> proper relative links this shouldn't occur

That's right, the site I refer to works quite OK this way, because as you say, the links are relative, not absolute
We do have some links in the main site that do link to pages on the sme server using www.mydomain.com.au/ibayname

We also have plenty of pages on the sme that serve directly to the internet ie some pages hosted externally, some hosted internally.
The internally hosted pages are setup to allow different users to be able to update them easily by VPN, something which is not possible/practical with the externally hosted pages ie can't hand out the access codes for the external site to many different users, something which is inherent in sme server by default.

Regards
Ray Mitchell

[James Roberts]

We have many of the same problems as Ed.

We also are UK, and have no interest in the SME box being pointed to by an MX, nor do we want it to serve web pages externally.

Using the SME panel to set the www address to an external service is just fine if the external service is served by a real server with a fixed IP address.

However in the yUK that's rarer than hen's teeth. Sites are served by virtual servers using HTTP1.1 'host_header' field.

I don't see a simple way of doing this with the panel, but there's gotta be a betta way.

Does anyone know how to achieve this? No doubt it's simple - too simple for me...

Thanks!

JR

[Kelvin]

James,

It might help if you could provide a domain / web site as an example for those of us not in the UK to test with.

I have not had any problem with the various web hosts here so will definitely need an example to work with.

Kelvin