Re: Remote Web Workplace---ISP concerns?
- From: Joe <joe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2007 22:07:46 +0100
zooeyhallne wrote:
Hi everyone. I recently setup SBS 2003 for our small company. One of the very useful features that made us acquire SBS was the Remote Web Workplace. It will be very helpful for users to access Outlook Web email and also run remote desktops from the Internet.Yes, but there's nothing that says someone providing Internet access has
I have setup these services, and opened ports 80 and 443 in our company firewall, and forwarded incoming requests to our SBS server. I have tried this from home, by going to Internet Explorer and the external IP address that our ISP has assigned to us, and I am able to access RWW just fine.
The next thing I wanted to do was get a DNS name, so that users could go to that instead of a cryptic IP address. I also need a DNS name to apply a server certificate, so that users don't get the "problem with website's certificate" warning when they connect to my company's SBS Remote Web Workplace from their home computers.
When I asked my company's ISP to provide me with a DNS name we could use, they went ballistic. "What ports do you have open?" "What services are you providing?" "Our agreement with your company forbids opening servers that can be a security risk, etc. etc."
I would like to ask: is our ISP crying wolf? I mean, there are tons of Small Business Servers out there in the world. Are all of them forbidding access to RWW features from users outside the company? Isn't this one of the most useful features of SBS?
to do it on their customers' terms rather than their own. Almost all
domestic ISPs have terms and conditions forbidding commercial use or the
operation of any servers, and some 'business' ISPs don't seem to realise
that the needs of their customers are different.
Start looking for an ISP who is willing to accept business customers,
and not necessarily just people who offer 'business' accounts. BT, the
national telecom provider in the UK, offers 'business' accounts but
hasn't a clue what this actually implies. They're quite happy to charge
extra for a fixed IP address without being willing to keep that address
off blacklists. They expect their customers to use third-party webmail.
If your present provider gets this upset over RWW, which they've
probably never heard of, you'll have no end of trouble with them over
email, blacklists and so on. Why did they think you needed a fixed IP
address?
You don't need to lease a domain name from your ISP, by the way. There
are thousands of companies worldwide who will be happy to register a
domain for you, most of them charging less than the average ISP would.
What you do need from your ISP, if you intend to send email directly
rather than through their SMTP server, is for them to set their PTR
record for your IP address to match the domain name you do get. If
you're not going to do that, they don't need to do anything for you.
Other than letting you get on with your business, that is.
One other thing. There's no SBS service that requires port 80 open,
though if it is, SBS will forward that to 443. You should close 80,
which will only attract the attention of undesirables while open.
.
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