DNS Error accessing webserver

[Pie21]

Hi guys, I only found out about and installed EHCP today and it looks like a brilliant app! I've almost got it working, but people outside my home network can't connect. Here's my configuration:

Wireless home network (cable modem -> D-Link wireless router, port forwarded)
Laptop (Ubuntu, Jaunty, running LAMP and EHCP)
Desktop PC (for non-hosting use, testing)
Ownership of domain piemaster.net (and drumtaboo.info) with GoDaddy.com

I followed that tutorial to set it up (went well), and I'm now running EHCP on my laptop with the domains set up. The thing is I can go to http://piemaster.net/ or http://drumtaboo.info/ in my browser and the sites work perfectly. However when people outside my home network try it, it fails to connect. EDIT: In the time I've been writing this, it no longer even works for me. See below .

Here's the two things I'm worried about (due to inexperience):

1. The name server setup with GoDaddy - I've read a lot of EHCP posts about this, and think I've got it right. I've registered my IP address (114.77.x.x, forwarded from my router's Virtual Server to my laptop's internal IP [192.168.0.193]) as both ns1.piemaster.net and ns2.piemaster.net, and set those name servers as the name servers for the domain. That was a couple hours ago, so it might just have not propagated yet, I'm not sure.

2. The network interface setup - the setup walkthrough said:
<code>
# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.254
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1
</code>
However I don't think I can just copy this format for a few reasons.
a) eth0 is my ethernet cable device afaik, and I'm using my wireless, so I put eth1 instead.
b) My network is 192.168.0.1, not .1.0 (D-Link vs Netgear I believe?), so I replaced all those 3rd-place 1's with 0's
c) Obviously the address is different, but should I leave the gateway as 192.168.0.1, or make it .1.1? Or should the network be .0.0?

3. Like I said, I've broken it for myself now too... the internal redirection USED to go from public port 8080 to local port 80, but I changed it to 80 -> 80. Then it worked for me but no one else, and I then realised I'd set up EHCP to think that the server was at 114.77.x.x:8080, so I changed it to the now correct address with no port. And now it doesn't work. The page fails to load, and Google Chrome tells me "DNS error - cannot find server".

Anyway there's no rush, but having read that can anyone suggest what course of action I can take with the best chance of success? Bear in mind it was working before I messed with the internal IP's, so the logic seems to be correct, just I've screwed up my networking somewhere.

Thank you in advance!

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[Pie21]

Just as a quick followup, I mentioned I bought both piemaster.net AND drumtaboo.info. drumtaboo.info is hosted on my laptop pretty normally - I just moved all the files into the right httpdocs directory and set GoDaddy's A record to my router's IP. The name servers are still the default GoDaddy ones. The thing is, http://drumtaboo.info/ displays exactly what it should for me, but not for those outside my home network, so the original problem still stands.

So the question is, why does http://piemaster.net/ NOT work at all, when the only difference is that it's more correct (i.e. I updated the name servers)? Presumably I messed up the name server settings somewhere. The thing is I don't want to revert the piemaster.net settings just to make it work, I would prefer to change BOTH sites to use the correct method AND work properly, but I'm not going to change drumtaboo.info's settings until I can get piemaster.net working.

Any clues?

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[ehcpdeveloper]

i did a few checks now..
nameserver for piemaster.net is ns1.piemaster.net , this is normal, or may be like this.. I assume that your main dns domain is piemaster.net.


however, when I look for A record for piemaster.net, I cannot find any.
for test, on linux console,

# host piemaster.net
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached


this means that your nameserver of ns1.piemaster.net is not reached through dns port of 53 somehow..

on an external (with regard to your home network) linux machine, try this:

host ns1.piemaster.net 114.77.x.x

this checks your ip, if it can handle dns requests..
or alternatively, you can:
nmap 114.77.x.x

this checks all open ports.. you should see port 20,53,80,110,143 etc. open there.. 53 is important for dns..
if it is not open, that means: you did not redirect your port 53 to your notebook..


if your external users cannot reach you, most probaly: your dns is not working from outside, somehow..
one possible reason for this: did you set ip of ns1.piemaster.net as 114.77.x.x on godaddy ? you may need to set this in godaddy.. some registrars needs this. I am not sure about godaddy.

normal behaviour for ex:

# host ehcp.net
ehcp.net has address 96.31.91.67
ehcp.net mail is handled by 10 mail.ehcp.net.
# host ns1.ehcp.net
ns1.ehcp.net has address 96.31.91.67
#




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[Pie21]

Thanks for the response, it's got me a bit closer I think.

First of all, my port 53 wasn't forwarded because I didn't know it was required. It's amazing how much assumed knowledge there is for Web hosting. I have now forwarded ports 21, 53, 80, 110 and 143 from my router to my laptop. nmap agrees. Is there any others I should have open?

Regarding the A record, there WAS a section of the GoDaddy interface called Total DNS which let me set A Records and all kinds of things. However it was only available when I was using the default GoDaddy namespaces - since I told it the site was hosted externally, I can't access the Total DNS thing anymore. Should I be setting A Records on my laptop somewhere? Do I really need to if the connection has already made it to my laptop?

I checked the name servers I registered (ns1.piemaster.net and ns2.piemaster.net), and both point to 114.77.86.29, my router's IP address (I saw other people putting .x.x, but I don't really see the point anymore ). If my router is set up to forward port 53 to my laptop's port 53, that should be all good, right?

Of course having done all this, it's still not working. So it's clearly a DNS setup problem - is there any quick ways to check for possible solutions? Like nmap - that thing is handy.

EDIT: I just noticed that there's a Dynamic DNS option on my router - could that be any help, even though my IP doesn't change unless I tell it to.

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[Mir]

Your isp usually blocks port 80.

Lets assume that you have that port opened.
Lets also assume that you have a static ip address.

Install ehcp and add your domain(s)
Go to godaddy, and configure the nameservers. (I forget if ehcp runs a dns server, if it doesnt you can use a service like http://freedns.afraid.org/)
All should work.
If you have any problems, i can help you out with the exact steps.

Does http://drumtaboo.info/ have a blank page as the main page?

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[Pie21]

Port 80 is open, and my laptop has a static IP.

I've installed EHCP and added both domains. I don't know exactly how EHCP works, but if it DOESN'T act as a DNS then that would explain a lot Nothing that talks about EHCP seems to say you need anything else (apart from LAMP stuff), so I just assumed it would work.

I'll have a look over freedns and see what happens though. Cheers!

And http://drumtaboo.info/ has all the content on it that I want since I moved all the files into its EHCP domain folder, so it's certainly not blank. It's being served correctly, as I can access it from my desktop (on the Home network). The problem certainly seems to be name servers, as that's the only thing I changed on GoDaddy between the two domain names.

EDIT: Hmm, well that's all very interesting. I signed up to Free DNS and changed my GoDaddy name servers to NS1-4.AFRAID.ORG and put the A Record for piemaster.net to my IP, but nothing's changed.

EDIT2: Running nslookup on piemaster.afraid.org (following "server ns1.afraid.org") like they suggested gave some error regarding my ISP, since I'd put my /etc/resolv.conf back how it started. Do you know what I should have written in /etc/resolv.conf? By default it's:

domain vic.optushome.com.au
search vic.optushome.com.au
nameserver 192.168.0.1

... where Optus is my ISP, but I'm pretty sure I have to change it. The nslookup error is like "server can't find piemaster.afraid.org.vic.optushome.com.au", but when I get rid of the domain line it tells me "server can't find piemaster.afraid.org: NXDOMAIN".

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[ehcpdeveloper]

If you would follow guid on http://www.ehcp.net/helper/yardim/cats.php, you would see necessary steps for a proper hosting operation, mostly.. Networking concepts and All ports are listed in http://www.ehcp.net/helper/yardim/cat.php?cid=6

dynamic dns option of router is for non-static ips i think, in your case, your ip is static..
Go and check on links above. they are moderately good guide I think..

I suggest you to do all tests from outside your home network.. Because, your internal network has some other concerns, I will tell you later, your internal net needs some other configuration for your sites to work...
Do all type of tests (dns, website etc..) from outside of your home net... for ex, a net of your friend...

Check on your local server:
host ns1.piemaster.net localhost
this should give a reply. if not, there is something wrong with your server's dns/bind.

I checked your server/external-real ip from two different locations.
What is interesting is :
your server gave very different results:
<code>
# nmap 114.77.86.29

Starting Nmap 4.76 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2009-08-12 17:14 EEST
Note: Host seems down. If it is really up, but blocking our ping probes, try -PN
Nmap done: 1 IP address (0 hosts up) scanned in 3.21 seconds
# nmap 114.77.86.29 -P0

Starting Nmap 4.76 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2009-08-12 17:14 EEST
Interesting ports on 114.77.86.29.optusnet.com.au (114.77.86.29):
Not shown: 990 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
25/tcp open smtp
53/tcp open domain
80/tcp open http
110/tcp open pop3
113/tcp closed auth
119/tcp open nntp
143/tcp open imap
5050/tcp open mmcc
5190/tcp open aol

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 12.88 seconds
# host piemaster.net 114.77.86.29
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
# host ns1.piemaster.net 114.77.86.29
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
#
#
#
#
# host ns1.piemaster.net 114.77.86.29
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
#
#
#
#
# nmap 114.77.86.29 -P0

Starting Nmap 4.76 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2009-08-12 17:23 EEST
Stats: 0:00:00 elapsed; 0 hosts completed (1 up), 1 undergoing SYN Stealth Scan
Interesting ports on 114.77.86.29.optusnet.com.au (114.77.86.29):
Not shown: 991 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
25/tcp open smtp
80/tcp open http
110/tcp open pop3
113/tcp closed auth
119/tcp open nntp
143/tcp open imap
5050/tcp open mmcc
5190/tcp open aol

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4.41 seconds
#
#
#
# nmap 114.77.86.29 -P0

Starting Nmap 4.76 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2009-08-12 17:24 EEST
Stats: 0:00:01 elapsed; 0 hosts completed (1 up), 1 undergoing SYN Stealth Scan
SYN Stealth Scan Timing: About 1.45% done; ETC: 17:25 (0:01:14 remaining)
Interesting ports on 114.77.86.29.optusnet.com.au (114.77.86.29):
Not shown: 998 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
25/tcp open smtp
113/tcp closed auth
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4.18 seconds
#
#

</code>

The meaning of those results are:
your server or network is not stable.. gives us very different results.. (or you did play with it in the time of my test).. This is really strange...
if you have a type of firewall, on your router or your server, I suggest first disabling it, that is, allow everything from outside,
then deny things one by one...

This is what I can suggest up to now..
see you.

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[Mir]

I will try it on my server, and list the steps here. Will post back in a few hours.

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[ehcpdeveloper]

ehcp installs, configures and runs bind/named dns server by default.. no special setting required for normal dns operation, apart from adding domain to ehcp.

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[Mir]

Didn't realize ehcp installed bind. Here are the steps to configure your dns with godaddy:

Install ehcp:
wget www.ehcp.net/download
tar -zxvf ehcp_latest.tgz
cd ehcp
./install.sh

Go to ehcp panel
Click easy add domain
Enter yourdomain.com

Log into GoDaddy
Click on Domain Manager
Click on the domain that you want to use
Look at bottom left, where it says Host Summary
Click add
Type NS1.yourdomain.com
Type in your IP where it says Host IP 1
Press ok
Click add again
Type NS2.yourdomain.com
Type in your IP where it says Host IP 1
Press ok

Under Nameservers, click Manage
Add your name servers (ns1.yourdomain.com and ns2.yourdomain.com)

Wait up to 2 days. Everything should work.

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