server noob could use some knowledge

[hornetwotop]

To keep things nice and brief, I'm hosting a server via python on my PC using the following command from a directory that has some crappy files in it.

 

python -m http.server 80

 

 

I'm trying to setup a server for my office and people in my company who work at different offices in different countries. We have other servers for things like our teamcity server and code collab servers that are accessible across different campuses, but my server is only accessible from the campus I'm at now. I'd gladly ask the people who set those servers up, but they are on vacation until the new year

 

I am working with someone at another campus to just keep trying to login to the server after I try different things on my end as this is my first foray into this sorta thing with no prior training.

 

We are able to ping the server off campus successfully, but we cannot access it via browser off campus. We can both ping and browse to it on campus.

 

Anyone have any advice for me?

[Eigenvektor]

To be more precise, you're starting a web server on your local machine.

 

This will only be available on your local network, unless your computer is reachable over the Internet. So unless you can ping your machine over the Internet, it's not going to be reachable from the outside world. Even if it is reachable, you'll only be able to connect to it using your computer's public IP address. To get a nice name (like my.computer.com) you'd have to (a) buy that domain and (b) have the DNS server point that name at your computer's IP address.

 

If your computer does have a public IP address and you can successfully ping your computer but you can't connect to port 80, that suggests a firewall is blocking those requests.

[hornetwotop]

Yes sorry, it is specifically a web server like you mentioned.

 

I guess another question I have then is that as I mentioned we do have some web servers setup in house that everyone on our domain can access on every campus, so how are those intranet accessible but internet inaccessible? I don't know what the people who set those up did to make that possible and ... every person involved in setting up those servers is on vacation until the new year  

[Eigenvektor]

2 minutes ago, hornetwotop said:

Yes sorry, it is specifically a web server like you mentioned.

 

I guess another question I have then is that as I mentioned we do have some web servers setup in house that everyone on our domain can access on every campus, so how are those intranet accessible but internet inaccessible? I don't know what the people who set those up did to make that possible and ... every person involved in setting up those servers is on vacation until the new year  

Are you running on Windows, Linux or Mac?

 

If it's the campus firewall that is blocking requests, you're out of luck until someone with access to that firewall can make an exception for your IP. If it's your computer's firewall, then you'd have to open the port on your machine to outside access.

[LtStaffel]

8 minutes ago, hornetwotop said:

Yes sorry, it is specifically a web server like you mentioned.

 

I guess another question I have then is that as I mentioned we do have some web servers setup in house that everyone on our domain can access on every campus, so how are those intranet accessible but internet inaccessible? I don't know what the people who set those up did to make that possible and ... every person involved in setting up those servers is on vacation until the new year  

What you really need to do is learn how to setup and use Nginx, a real web server. If you are just trying to share files, you want SFTP (secure FTP). For the actual communication channel from site to site but not being public to the internet, I recommend a site-to-site VPN using something like Wireguard. It will take a lot more work to get those setup than what you have now, but you need a real solution, not a hacky Python web server. You will really need to find someone nearby who can and will help you out with this, because it will not be doable to figure this all out by trial and error. I don't know if you have an IT director or network/sysadmin, but if you do they should know how to do these things I just mentioned. If you don't, I recommend outsourcing it to an MSP or something. Your time is too valuable in a corporate setting to attempt this without professional aid.

[LtStaffel]

8 minutes ago, hornetwotop said:

Yes sorry, it is specifically a web server like you mentioned.

 

I guess another question I have then is that as I mentioned we do have some web servers setup in house that everyone on our domain can access on every campus, so how are those intranet accessible but internet inaccessible? I don't know what the people who set those up did to make that possible and ... every person involved in setting up those servers is on vacation until the new year  

I just read this more thoroughly. So it sounds like you already have a VPN setup and some existing web servers. Does this server you want to add need to be up right now? I would highly recommend waiting for your IT staff to come back if at all possible. The chances of messing something with the existing configuration up while trying to add this are very very high, especially if you are new to this kind of stuff.

[hornetwotop]

3 minutes ago, LtStaffel said:

What you really need to do is learn how to setup and use Nginx, a real web server. If you are just trying to share files, you want SFTP (secure FTP). For the actual communication channel from site to site but not being public to the internet, I recommend a site-to-site VPN using something like Wireguard. It will take a lot more work to get those setup than what you have now, but you need a real solution, not a hacky Python web server. You will really need to find someone nearby who can and will help you out with this, because it will not be doable to figure this all out by trial and error. I don't know if you have an IT director or network/sysadmin, but if you do they should know how to do these things I just mentioned. If you don't, I recommend outsourcing it to an MSP or something. Your time is too valuable in a corporate setting to attempt this without professional aid.

It's not actually a python server, that's just the quickest example of a web server I could give to illustrate the underlying issue of access.

1 minute ago, LtStaffel said:

I just read this more thoroughly. So it sounds like you already have a VPN setup and some existing web servers. Does this server you want to add need to be up right now? I would highly recommend waiting for your IT staff to come back if at all possible. The chances of messing something with the existing configuration up while trying to add this are very very high, especially if you are new to this kind of stuff.

Yeah the issue that I need this up before those people come back. They're not IT though, they are engineers. We have no access to network settings and are just given the group policy settings passed down by IT. I'm trying to exhaust all of my options before resorting to IT because they are all interns at a local university on work study so... their help is sort of limited by their expertise which is nil lol.

[LtStaffel]

Just now, hornetwotop said:

It's not actually a python server, that's just the quickest example of a web server I could give to illustrate the underlying issue of access.

Yeah the issue that I need this up before those people come back. They're not IT though, they are engineers. We have no access to network settings and are just given the group policy settings passed down by IT. I'm trying to exhaust all of my options before resorting to IT because they are all interns at a local university on work study so... their help is sort of limited by their expertise which is nil lol.

If you can access that test web server (python) from a different computer at the same campus, and can ping it from another campus but not access the test server, then there are a couple things to check for. You'll either need port forwarding, which would be something you'd set in the router at your campus, or your campus' firewall is blocking that connection, which of course you'll need access to that firewall's configuration for.

[hornetwotop]

Just now, LtStaffel said:

If you can access that test web server (python) from a different computer at the same campus, and can ping it from another campus but not access the test server, then there are a couple things to check for. You'll either need port forwarding, which would be something you'd set in the router at your campus, or your campus' firewall is blocking that connection, which of course you'll need access to that firewall's configuration for.

Yeah that's the exact scenario I am in. It seems like I have no choice but to contact IT and make an exception in our network for that server.

[LtStaffel]

Just now, hornetwotop said:

Yeah that's the exact scenario I am in. It seems like I have no choice but to contact IT and make an exception in our network for that server.

Yeah, if you don't have access to those then you will have to contact them. Port forwarding is the less likely cause of the two, as I think about it more.

[hornetwotop]

31 minutes ago, LtStaffel said:

Yeah, if you don't have access to those then you will have to contact them. Port forwarding is the less likely cause of the two, as I think about it more.

Alright then I'll give IT a shot since it seems like there's really nothing left I can do on my end without the ability to make network modifications. Thanks very much for the speedy help!