3bx

Ok, I more or less solved the problem with all of your help. Thanks!

I turned off all my web forwarding at Network Solutions for my domain, 3bx.us, and I configured one DNS A record as such: hisdev1.3bx.us to equal 76.93.148.234

Then on my server I put “dns-domain 3bx.us” in the /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/base file and added “dns-domain 3bx.us” to my /etc/network/interfaces file and added to the /etc/hosts file the line: “10.0.101.101 hisdev1.3bx.us hisdev1”

Then in the Dashboard General Settings for WordPress and Site Address I put: “hisdev1.3bx.us:5580”

Now from the inside or outside my website works perfectly by putting “hisdev1.3bx.us:5580” in the browser. If I had a different firewall I wouldn’t need to use port 5580, but the SSG5 reserves 80 for itself.

I consider this to be resolved because I can now view my site locally and from the outside. To make this work I learned I needed three things:

1. The local WordPress server must be configured to know its own fully qualified domain name. You can verify this with the command “hostname –fqdn”
2.You must get a DNS A record with the fully qualified domain name of the server (from part 1) and your public IP known to the global DNS.
3. You must put that same fully qualified domain name from part 1 and 2 in the in the WordPress and Site Address section of the General Settings.

That’s about it ??

I’m pretty sure I know a solution. I buy a static IP from my ISP then create a DNS A record with Network Solutions for something like webserver1.3bx.us matched to the purchased IP address. Then on my WP server, I configure it to return “webserver1.3bx.us” to the “hostname –fqdn” command. After that I can properly put “https://webserver1.3bx.us” in the WordPress and Site Address section of General Settings and things will work.

I believe I was mixing up the web forwarding that I have now with the creation of an new A record for my WP server.

Is there a way to make the dashboard changes by editing config files? I changed the WordPress and Site Address to 3bx.us and as I expected it broke the site.

I am going to restore from a backup vm, but was wondering if there is a way to reverse or make GUI Dashboard changes from the command line.

Thanks

I didn’t make any changes. No idea about the frame. 76.93.148.234 is the right address, it’s my outside address. 3bx.us will resolve to 205.178.189.131 if you ping it from the command line, but that is network solutions and they forward it to 76.93.148.234…

If I access the website as 3bx.us then right click the Log in link to open in a new tab it works, and as expected the browser bar turns into the address instead of the domain, because that is what I told the WP server to send. If I just click on the Log in link from the main 3bx.us page it doesn’t work.

Seems like I’m going to have to figure out how to configure my server with a domain name that I can put in the WordPress and Site Address section of the General Settings. Which brings me back to the question I had earlier. I don’t think I can put 3bx.us into the WordPress and Site Address section because that is a domain, not a server. Or maybe I can? Why is it that the website address in the browser bar is www.remarpro.com instead of, for example, webserver1.www.remarpro.com since obviously there is a server. I’m thinking it is because that part is taken care of by apache.

Right ?? But if you click on Log in you should at least get the Username / Password page though right? And that doesn’t come up if you access the page with 3bx.us whereas it does if you access the page with the public address:5580 you see when you inspect the source.

What happens is strange. There are no errors, just nothing happens. At the bottom of the browser window I can see where the action is supposed to happen, but it just doesn’t.

For example if I try a new post I see: (public adress)A.B.C.D:5580/wp-admin/post-new.php at the bottom of the browser…but it just sits there, nothing happens. For fun I recursively chmoded everything in /var/www to 777 to see if that was a problem, but didn’t help.

Some website actions actually do work though. I can click on the Sample Page and it works and I can leave a reply on a post and it works…

If the server is up you can see for yourself at 3bx.us

Something else I don’t understand about installing and self hosting a WordPress blog. When you have a domain like 3bx.us or www.remarpro.com for example, the actual webserver is a host in the domain, so why isn’t the webpage url something like webserver1.www.remarpro.com instead of just the domain www.remarpro.com

s_ha_dum,

This statement of yours helps to clear things up for me: “The address at wp-admin->Settings->General is the address used by WordPress when generating URLs”

I think this helps me understand a new and related problem (so this issue is not totally resolved for me after all…) I’m having.

My WP blog works perfect now from the outside when I use the public address I put in the Site and WordPress address section of General Settings. The thing is I have purchased a domain from Network Solutions and have used their management tool to associate my domain with the public address of my blog. Now (from the outside) if I put my domain in the browser address bar the main page of my blog comes up fine….but again…if I navigate off the page it doesn’t work.

So the problem here (I think) is the server is sending the url as the static address I configured, but the browser is trying to use a resolvable hostname?

Wonder how I could fix this? Do I need to edit my /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname file? Then instead of using the static outside address in the general settings use the resolvable hostname of the server (something ClaytonJames mentioned way back in the beginning)?

Thanks

I changed it back to DB_HOST as localhost without the port. Thanks.

Resolved.

ClaytonJames,

I come from a networking background so it just made no sense to me to configure the outside address on a local machine since the firewall is doing the translations.

But I took yours (and s_ha_dum’s) advice anyway and now it works!

It seems wrong that I can put an outside public address in the browser bar on a machine behind the firewall and have it work, but hey it works.

Thanks again for the help, I appreciate it!

Forgot to mention that my wp-config.php file is configured with: DB_HOST as localhost:5580

ClaytonJames and s_ha_dum, I appreciate the help, Thanks!

I just changed the General Settings Site and WordPress Address section to localhost instead of the static local address of the server interface or the translated outside address configured on the firewall.

So the site still works locally.

When I first accessed the site remotely after making this change I got only the “It Works!” page and not my WordPress site. To solve this I changed the name of the index.html file in /var/www to paused_index.html. Now when I access my site from the public internet using the public translated address, the main WordPress page comes up successfully, but again…any navigation off the main page results in a “can’t connect” web page for https://localhost:5580/wp-login.php

s_ha_dum I did a source view of the working main page like you mentioned, and you are right it shows the exact information you put in the WordPress and Site Address section of the General Settings. I’ve included the output below.

I’m pretty sure I cant put the translated public address in the WordPress and Site Address section and still have the website work locally, that’s why I used localhost instead.

<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
<title>3BX | Making ways to know..</title>
<link rel="profile" href="https://gmpg.org/xfn/11" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="https://localhost:5580/wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/style.css" />
<link rel="pingback" href="https://localhost:5580/xmlrpc.php" />
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src="https://localhost:5580/wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/js/html5.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="3BX ? Feed" href="https://localhost:5580/?feed=rss2" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="3BX ? Comments Feed" href="https://localhost:5580/?feed=comments-rss2" />
<link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="https://localhost:5580/xmlrpc.php?rsd" />
<link rel="wlwmanifest" type="application/wlwmanifest+xml" href="https://localhost:5580/wp-includes/wlwmanifest.xml" />
<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 3.4.1" />
	<style type="text/css">.recentcomments a{display:inline !important;padding:0 !important;margin:0 !important;}</style>
</head>

Thanks for your input.

Let me restate the problem. My new WordPress installation works fine on the local network. I have a firewall that translates the local address of the website to a public outside address. I can successfully access the website from the outside with the translated outside address, but only the main page works. When I navigate off the main page I get a “could not connect” message in the browser and the address that one moment earlier had been the correct public address, now shows up as the translated private address that I have configured in the Site and WordPRess Address section of the General settings.

Resolved.