The Presence of the Running Machine on the Internet

Everything has a start, and has an end.

Deploying a server over the Internet is different from setting up a local server without being revealed to outside people. For a server to be unknown on the Internet by fully-qualified hostname, it requires some registration processes. Furthermore, since the server is known to the public, some security measures should have been taken to avoid the abuse of the server.

This package includes basic elements for network operation, for example, DNS, FTP, firewall, backup storage server, VPN (Virtual Private Network) and Email .

We start from the introduction on Domain name registration with the following diagram:

1. Purchase domain name from the “vendor for domain name registration”

The “Domain Name Registration Vendor” usually will provide a Web interface for you to query your desired domain name. You may find some of the domain names you like have been acquired by other people. It is necessary for you need to find a domain name that is not being occupied. And then make the purchase of the domain name from the “Domain Name Registration Vendor” to complete this step.

2. Purchase Internet bandwidth and obtain “static” IP addresses from your local ISP (internet service provider).

Usually, the ISP will give you a set of IP addresses that may include a list of public IP addresses, the netmask, and the default Gateway. This IP information will be used when you install the software and configure your server. You shall keep the information in a safe place once you obtain that from your ISP.

3. Find a legitimate “DNS host provider”

It is to host your domain name (which you get from step 2) and the associated static IP address (which you get from step 3) record so that everybody on Internet can use your domain name to reach your server. Usually, the “DNS host provider” will provide a Web interface to allow you to input your domain name and the mapped IP address record into their hosted server. This step is completed after you have entered the data into the web page.

4. Update the record at the “Domain Name Registration Vendor” server with the IP addresses of the “DNS host provider”.

At this step, you need to access the website provided by “Domain Name Registration Vendor”. If you do not know the DNS server’s IP addresses of your “DNS host provider”, you can do as follows at your Windows command prompt (the command prompt is reached through Start > Run > cmd), issue the command

　　C:\>nslookup DNS-server- name-from-your-provider

The system will respond with the IP address of your “DNS host provider”. Usually, you need to find two IP addresses of the two DNS servers provided by “DNS host provider” (one is called primary DNS host server, the other is secondary DNS host server). The two IP addresses will be entered into the record in the place of “Domain Name Registration Vendor”. We suggest using primary DNS server and secondary server from different places. The Azblink server package also provides DNS server. But to allow people all over the world can query your domain, you should have your domain name placed in different DNS servers to alleviate the load.

5. Wait until it is in effect.

In general, it needs 24 hours to 72 hours to have your domain name record of the server populated across the world so that people can use domain name to access your server.
Those are the general steps as long as you want to have your own private server(s) on Internet.

Basic Web Setting

After the system installation be finished, take the CD out, reboot the machine, and then start the basic network setting for the system.

There are two modes to configure the host, one is console mode on the local host, and the other is Web interface mode on Client. You can choose the one you like or just by the network environment of that time.

Console Mode --- configure on local host

A. Input account and password to login into console configuration interface.

　login：reset
　Password：root123

B. You will see 7 options after login in

　1. IP Address：192.168.19.185
　2. Netmask：255.255.255.0
　3. Default Gateway：192.168.19.1
　4. Save and Reboot
　5. Reset to CD setting (DHCP) and Reboot
　6. View Current Active Values
　7. Exit without Saveing Changes

C. Is there any fixed ip ready for configuration?

　 Yes, type fixed IP address, Netmask and Default Gateway into option 1.2.3. severally. You can use up
　　and down arrow to choose the option who needs edit, and then press enter to configure. After option 1.2.3
　　be correctly configured, you can use option 4 to save these changes and reboot the machine. (If you have
　　no idea about the Netmask and Default Gateway, you can just refer to the Completion List provided by your
　　ISP.)

　 No, if there is a DHCP server providing the IP assignment services in your network, you can just use option6
　　to check the IP address assigned by the system. After checking eth0, please write down the IP address, and
　　remember to use option 7 to quit the Console interface.

D. By the IP address you set or the one obtained from DHCP, you can view the configuration page of the
　　 system host via Web browser on remote Client.

※ DHCP server exists in your network, but if you find eth0 shown as IP 1.2.3.4 when you check current system value, please check if your network cables plug into wrong place (eh0 and eth1 may been exchanged), or if there are some problems on other equipments. (Refer to Q&A in the manual)


Web interface Mode --- configure at sub-network

A. Is the host, which you installed system on, connected by other hosts?

　 Yes, please confirm the host is the only DHCP sever (that is to say the network should not have other
　　DHCP servers, e.g. IP distributor), and then start from C.

　 No, please complete basic network configuration according to B’s instruction.

B. A network cable makes host’s eth1 port and the Hub connected. And use another cable to connect to
　　Hub, let the other end of this cable link to a common Client computer.

C. Choose one Client computer from the sub-network which connected to the system host.

D. Open command prompt on the Client (suppose it’s a Windows machine), type “ipconfig” and then press
　“Enter” button, check whether the Default Gateway is 172.16.9.1 or not?

　 Yes, just close the command prompt, enter into next step.

　 No, type “ipconfig/release” to release the old IP in your computer, and then type “ipconfig/renew” to get
　　new assigned IP.
　　(If you are still unable to obtain new IP, please check if the network has other DHCP sever or not, or maybe
　　TCP/IP of this Client does not use the mode of “Obtain an IP Address Automatically”.)

E. Open your Browser, and type http://172.16.9.1 at the address bar to link. When you visit the page at the
　　first time, you will see 4 items;

　　Host Name：Please set Host Name for this host.
　　Admin Password：Default password is admin123.
　　New Admin Password：Please set new password.
　　Confirm Password：Please confirm your new password.

F. After you enter into system page, go to System>>Network, choose Internet or PPPoE depending on the
　situation.

　 Choose Internet. At the Internet Interface, mostly, you should set the values for IP address / Netmask /
　　Default Gateway and then submit, restart your machine and you will find it already connected to Internet.

　 Choose PPPoE. If you use PPPoE, remember to check the checkbox of “Turn on PPPoE”. Fill in the account
　　and password provided by ISP and submit, reboot your computer, then you can connect to the network.
　　(Please refer to the sections of Configuration and Q&A in Quick Installation Guide if you have any questions.)

Web Caching

The web caching here is to store html pages that are previously accessed before so that the clients do not have to connect to the remote hosts if the same pages are requested. However, to cache the result of http request of people, you have to let people know how to connect this http proxy server. If you have setting in Border Control->Proxy->Web Caching as follows:

HTTP Port for Using Proxy: 3128

This stands for the proxy server is at TCP port 3128 of this machine. If the LAN interface is with IP address 192.168.1.1, then you can ask people to use 192.168.1.1 TCP port 3128 as the proxy setting in the Web browser. ( Please refer to the example at the end about how to set proxy in your Windows Web browser. ) Furthermore, if the virtual Ethernet interface created by VPN is with IP address 172.16.38.1 on VPN server along with http proxy, the people in VPN should just use 172.16.38.1 TCP port 3128 if they want their http requests back to the office to reach the destination they want to visit.

For using this Web AP Proxy, the TCP port needs to be specified so that the clients can use this port for their http traffic. You might want to force all the http traffic going through this http proxy even if they do not set proxy in their web browser. This can be done by using “REDIRECT” action in the firewall to force all the normal http traffic go to this proxy port so that each client does not have to set http in the web browser. Use Border Control->Advanced->Add Rule:

Action: REDIRECT
Source: loc
Destination: 3128
Protocol: TCP
Destination port: 80
Source port: -
Original Destination IP: 192.168.1.1

Cache size is another important parameter. If you set the cache size too large, a lot of web pages will be accumulated in the proxy server. Every time when there is a request, the proxy server has to look into the cache and check if it should fetch from the remote side. It depends on the access pattern of your traffic to choose appropriate cache size.

 You also can specify the network that is allowed to access this proxy. This is to prevent the usage of the proxy from somewhere you are not aware of. Or you want block certain types of users by their IP addresses in the subnet, you can just use this function here. This is to block the users so that those users can not access http proxy. In other words, if this is the only way to browse Internet in your office environment, those machines in that network can not Web browser to browse Internet.

For those machines allowed to access the Internet, you might want to block some websites so that they can not view the content of those websites. In that cast, you should use the method introduced below.

URL Screening

You can just specify the domain name to block a class of URL belonging to that domain. All the URLs extending from that domain will not be accessed by the clients of the proxy. The blocked URL domains will be listed so that all the related URLs will not be viewed by the clients.

 For example, if you put “nodomain.com” in the list, for URL like www.nodomain.com, www.nodomain.com/help.html, mimi.nodomain.com, ddd.nodomain.com will all be blocked. 

Example: How to set Proxy in Web Browser

The following is the step for set http proxy in Microsoft Internet Explorer.
SelectTools->Internet Options



It shows a menu as follows. Click “Connections” on the top:



Click “LAN Setting” at the bottom after you switch to “Connections” .



Up to this stage, you click the box for use proxy server.  You can just ignore those wording about VPN setting in Microsoft Internet Browser. It refers to the VPN solution from Microsoft, not the VPN package we provide along with out software.

Transparent Http Proxy for Application Layer Border Control

In some cases, you might want to block users to access a specific website. But unfortunately, that website is consisted of a collection of hosts with multiple IP addresses; you have no idea on how to catch all the IP addresses and put those IP addresses on the block list. In this case, you need application layer logic and you have to combine several modules to do this task.

The operation principle is quite easy: “REDIRECT” all the outgoing http traffic to “http proxy” and do the access control on “http proxy”. Currently, http proxy is placed under Border Control->Proxy.

If “http proxy” is listening in the port 3128, you can use the following procedures to block a website:

From Border Control->Advanced->Add Rule, set
Action: REDIRECT
Source: loc
Destination: 3128
Protocol: TCP
Destination Port: 80
Source Port: -
Original Destination IP: !172.16.9.1

( assume 172.16.9.1 is the IP address of eth1; you do not want to block your access to the firewall via Web browser )

And from Border Control->Proxy->Web Caching,  turn on “Transparent Proxy”.



Do not forget to set the network that is allowed to access this proxy. For those IP addresses not being listed in the network list, they are not allowed to use this http proxy.

And in Border Control->Proxy->URL Screening, you can add the domain names you would like to block so that users will not be able access those web pages.



This approach is applicable to other network application in addition to “http” as long as the proxy servers exist for those applications.

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