Comments on: Windows Home Server Nirvana Is One Step Closer

By: James

James — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:45:53 +0000

Fortunately (heh) I already have FiOS. This is still an issue for me. Did the problem go away for you after switching to FiOS? If so, how?

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:15:41 +0000

Unfortuantely (or fortunately, depending your POV), I switched over from DSL to FiOS before resolving the issue. I no longer have this issue, as a result. One of the dynamic DNS services mentioned above might help.

By: James

James — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:30:30 +0000

“I can’t yet access my WHS box through my custom homeserver.com domain. Instead, I have to navigate to it by using the WAN IP address provided by Verizon Wireless. For example, if Verizon assigns the IP of 185.123.4.5 to my DSL connection, I have to type https://185.123.4.5:4443 to get to my WHS box. Obviously that’s not ideal because it’s clunky and more importantly, it becomes useless the minute Verizon changes the IP address I’ve been assigned.”

Did you ever solve this issue? It matches my problem exactly and I’m a bit stumped.

By: oVan

oVan — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:14:42 +0000

If your ISP blocks port 80 and/or 443, you don’t need to change the port numbers in IIS:

Instead of configuring your router to forward port 8080 and 4443 to the same ports on your WHS, let it forward them to port 80 & 443. Most routers allow you to define virtual servers where you can define incoming and outgoing port differently. No changes on the WHS/IIS side needed.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:45:53 +0000

This is precisely why I’d rather not go with a third-party DDNS service if I can help it. I’d rather use the native function.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:28:55 +0000

It shocks me how many commenters don’t realize that WHS comes with free dynamic DNS that almost configures itself.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 30 May 2009 11:36:23 +0000

DynDNS is what you need.

You can get a free Dynamic DNS hostname (such as jkontherun.dyndns.org) by going to http://www.dyndns.com/. There is a how-to guide that will walk you through the whole process here:

http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/howto.html

By: eTomm

eTomm — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:26:44 +0000

I bought a domain for 7 dollars every year, pointed it to ZoneEdit.com (free service), configured DNS-o-Matic to manage zoneedit, dyndns and no-ip.

To update Dns-o-matic i use a old version of Dyndns updater modded to update dns-o-matic.

And i use OpenDNS as dns servers.

At the end i payed just 7 dollars and i have a true domain pointing to home.

By: GoodThings2Life

GoodThings2Life — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:56:55 +0000

Incidentally, a static IP from any ISP is usually about $10/month… so keep that in mind before you pay more/month for a DynDNS service (although if you can find a cheaper solution anywhere, use it).

By: James

James — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:50:42 +0000

Kevin – get hamachi. http://www.logmein.com. Solves all the communications issues and you do not need to leave any open ports on your computer and you don’t have to worry about ip address issues. All your communications are done via the vpn tunnel. Works great almost everywhere I have ever tried it. I use it to connect to my office exchange server and files.

By: TSilver

TSilver — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:58:02 +0000

hello,

I use the no-ip service http://www.no-ip.com/services/managed_dns/free_dynamic_dns.html for this. It updates an external service with the most recent IP address that I am connecting with and provides DNS services to map .no-ip.com to that dynamically changing IP address.

hth.

Tom

By: TimB

TimB — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:45:50 +0000

Aren’t you Houston-based? If so, where is FIOS available?

-Northsider

By: Ben Drawbaugh

Ben Drawbaugh — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:51:05 +0000

Why not either use the default port or specify the port with the host name?

https://ktofel.homeserver.com:4443

Also, it is useful to realize that remote access already uses a secure port regardless of what you connect to the website with. Instead of 3389 is uses 4125.

So in other words your WHS listens on 80, 443, 3389 and 4125 by default. You can use 3389 with the regular RDP client or launch the web version via the WHS website that will use 4125.

By: TateJ

TateJ — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:37:46 +0000

I can’t wait to see how this works out for you Kevin. I haven’t set my HP WHS for remote access yet. I’ve been concerned about security. Any ideas how you are gonna address that?

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:26:18 +0000

Thanks Bill and Tax Man! Yup, a DDNS service is where I was headed next, but I’m not sure I’ll need it once I have FiOS. More than likely I will and if so, I’ll go this route for sure.

By: Tax Man

Tax Man — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:18:45 +0000

The other Bill beat me to it. DynDNS.org is a free solution to addressing dynamic IP addresses. Here’s a link to a couple of lifehacker.com articles that might help. http://fetch.lifehacker.com/tag/geek-to-live/?refId=200