MiniPortal: Setup: Access from the Internet

General

In order for internet users to view your web site, MiniPortal's (web and FTP) servers must be accessible from the internet. The most common problems accessing the web server are:

1. MiniPortal is not running.

Solution: Run MiniPortal before accessing from the internet.

2. Access from the internet is blocked by a firewall, router, or local proxy server.

Solution: Check the firewall, router, or local proxy server documentation for instructions on passing requests to port 80 (HTTP) and port 21 (FTP) for the IP address of the server machine (to find the server's IP address, roll the mouse over the MiniPortal "!" icon in the lower-right part of the screen). Many routers (and external firewalls) allow server access to be setup directly from a web browser.

3. Access from the internet is blocked by an ISP.

Some ISPs block access to port 80 (HTTP) and/or port 21 (FTP) on their customers' machines. This effectively prohibits operation of web servers on the default port 80.

Solution: The ISP must either allow access to ports 80 (HTTP) and 21 (FTP), or another port must be used for the web server (the FTP server requires port 21).

If you wish to use another port for the web server, use the MiniPortal Administrator to change the MiniPortal web server port (e.g. to port 81). Then, re-run the Basic Access Test using the new port number by appending '?webport=xx' to the test URL, where 'xx' is the new port number.

Caution: if you change the web server port to a value other than 80, you must append a colon (:) and the port number to the domain name (e.g. on port 82, http://localhost:82 would access the domain localhost). For normal access (without the port number), you can later use a URL redirection service (e.g. zoneedit.com) to redirect accesses for your domain to a special domain name and port (e.g. your-domain.com -> www2.your-domain.com:82). Use the MiniPortal Administrator to configure the special domain name and port number for the URL redirection service.