View Single Post
Old 11-19-2009, 10:36 AM   #15 (permalink)
Martian
Young Crumudgeon
 
Martian's Avatar
 
Location: Canada
Okay. Well, it's the next day and my nerd rage has subsided a bit. I've decided to whip up a quick and dirty MS Paint diagram for you to give you an idea of what the network topology on something like this should look like.

What Vigilante has suggested is a bit of a hack; the problem is, as long as you're using a single IP for everything you're stuck using NAT and port forwarding. Aside from that, your home network is on the same address as the server, meaning that you're visible to the outside world and someone sufficiently savvy may be able to break into your network. Apart from all that, with his topology as illustrated above, you're going to be behind two layers of NAT. Double-NAT is bad and has the potential to break stuff.

What you really want is something like this:


The firewall is marked as optional, but it is strongly recommended. The reason that you could possibly get away without it is because the server box itself isn't likely to be overtaxed, so you could run a firewall directly on there. Also, depending on your routing solutions you might not need it -- a lot of routers these days have stateful firewalls built right in.

Router 1 will have NAT disabled, and will instead route via IP. This is also why you're probably going to need a Cisco router -- so far as I'm aware, there are no consumer-grade routers that can handle a /30 subnet (although to be fair, I've never really tried to use one that way). IP 1 of your subnet will go to your HTTP server, while IP 2 will handle everything else and connect to your home network. You can stick any consumer-grade router on that port and it should do fine, although if you're going to invest the cash to do this I'd recommend a Linksys WRT310N, as they're quite nice.

It should be noted that cofiguring a Cisco router aint like setting up your DLink jobbie. These things are very complex. You'll need to SSH in and actually know what you're doing. Seriously, people take courses just on this alone.

With this setup it actually becomes fairly trivial to add additional servers to the network, although I can't imagine why you would want to. With the sort of connections available on residential services you're not likely to overtax the box even if you run HTTP, POP/IMAP, SMTP and FTP all on the same one.

The other problem with this setup lies in the fact that most residential service providers in Canada will not lease you any kind of subnet. The exception I'm sure of is Teksavvy, but I seem to recall you being in Atlantic Canada and I don't know if they offer service out there.

We've told you all the reasons this is a bad idea. All that's left to say is good luck to you sir.
__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame
Martian is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360