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Access Local Server Via Public IP

We have a couple of servers within our local LAN that are available from the Internet as well. The problem is that LAN users must use the private IPs of the servers instead of the public URL or they are unable to connect. This gets confusing when people move between inside the office and remote locations. It would be better if we could just use the public address/IP for everything.

The LAN is a Windows domain using the DC for DNS and it all sits behind a SonicWALL gateway.

Adam Brown

One of the security features sonic wall implements is to block attempts to connect to your Public IP address from inside the environment. There may be a way to stop this from happening, but I haven't used SonicWall in a while, so I can't give you instructions on how to do that.

Probably the best solution for the issue you are dealing with is to add an Internal version of the DNS zone that users use to access the server using the URL to your internal DNS servers. If you do this, you can have the same URL to access the server, but you can configure the internal version of the URL to connect to the private IP. This will allow internal users to connect to the server using the Same URL as external, and it won't impact external users' ability to access the server.

slattdog

ASKER

That was kind of what I figured, but I'm not sure how to make that entry in the Windows Server 2008 DNS. Any help there?

slattdog

ASKER

just to update...

The local domain = domain.local
The public domain = domain.com

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

N-W

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