wingate resolves when internet does not.

[rdunn]

Created a web server behind wingate and a service to (I thought) access the web site from the internet. I was happily adding functionality to the web site when I received a call from a client that said they could not access the new web site I set up. This surprised me because I can access the external web site from within my wingate network. It seems that I (somehow) have configured wingate to resolve this web site for my internal network (behind wingate). I need a way to see exactly what an external user sees, skip any resolution that wingate is providing me. This would allow me to make sure the web site is available to external internet users.

What is the easiest way to accomplish this? Can I do this for one pc behind wingate or does this change affect all pc’s behind wingate?

Thanks,

[adrien]

Hi

Who hosts the DNS records for this new site?

Sounds like your customer is having trouble looking up the site name, resolving through to the external IP on your WinGate computer which would then reverse-proxy it to your web server.

Regards

Adrien

[rdunn]

Hi Adrian-

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, the dns2go folks have had an issue with their DNS resolution.

I am still very interested in if/how a internal pc behind Wingate could bypass Wingate's internal resolution. My issue is that if I do any testing internally, behind Wingate, everything resolves fine and the internal web site is accessible. However, that is not how the web site is to be used. The real use requires external resolution, which I can not do unless I myself physically leave the Wingate network. This would help me verify that my site is up and accessible to external users without having to be external myself.

Thanks again.

-Bob

[adrien]

Hi

you can use nslookup to test any DNS server for whether it can resolve a name or not.

For instance run nslookup, type the command "server A.B.C.D" where A.B.C.D is your ISP DNS server. Then try looking up the name.

nslookup (and DNS resolvers on your LAN) will work through NAT through WinGate as well. That's how they could bypass the DNS resolver of WinGate. You should be able to see if this is happening by checking your NAT logs, or history, and looking for NAT: UDP connection to x.y.z.a:53 (the 53 being the key here).

There's no way that the name can work inside your network, and not work outside your network unless your network has been told something about that name. This can be by way of:

* a hosts file on a LAN computer (one that is testing)
* the hosts file on the WinGate computer
* some DNS records in a DNS server you're running on your LAN.

If you clear your network of any knowledge of that name (except for the reverse proxy settings in WinGate), then your network will rely on the same resolution mechanism that the rest of the internet relies on, so you should have the same experience.

Regards

Adrien