External Access - ePortal

[tony_baduk]

Hi,

I'm trying to setup an external connection for ePortal. The external access was previously working with our local authority's internet connection, however we have since moved to an independent broadband company so I'm hoping it's just a case of tweaking the config file.

 

Background

ePortal and Facility are installed on the one server - Admin server

Ports 8443 and 8080 have been opened by our internet provider

I have verified these ports are open on the following external address http://82.219.204.201:8080/

Locally ePortal loads without issues

ePortal is installed on IIS6 (on it's own) on Server 2003

 

Problem

I'd like to provide the option for staff to access ePortal from outside of school using the above address - however I will later create a sub domain eportal.domain.com once external access is working.

 

My knowledge on IIS is pretty basic so just needed to know the best way to configure this.

 

Thanks for looking!

[TronXP]

http://82.219.204.201:8080/eportal/

and

httsp://82.219.204.201:8443/eportal/

 

seems to work with /eportal being the default directory eportal is installed on the tomcat. Are you just wanting it to redirect automatically?

[psydii]

Shutdown port 8080 on the firewall right now. You should never access student data over a public connection without encryption.

 

i'm a bit busy right now, but if no one has posted a recipie in the next few days I'll dig out and post my own notes on how we did this.

[tony_baduk]

Thanks both for your replies - I've closed the port 8080 addy.

 

Yup I'm wanting to redirect automatically.

 

psydii - your notes would be helpful - thanks.

[themightymrp]

Just so you know, the 8080 link is still accessible :-/

[tony_baduk]

Just so you know, the 8080 link is still accessible :-/

 

Closed now.

[tony_baduk]

Any ideas how I can remove the port number from the URL? Currently local address is http://server:8080/eportal and externally https://domain:8443/eportal

 

Thanks.

[themightymrp]

Is there any reason why you didn't use port 443? Then you could just have https://domain/eportal

[tony_baduk]

Is there any reason why you didn't use port 443? Then you could just have https://domain/eportal

 

This is how it was previously configured. The local access was on port 8080 instead of just 80. Can you help with me correct these ports to 80 and 443 or tell me how I can hide these ports on the URL?

 

Thanks!

[themightymrp]

It sounds like your ePortal is not correctly using the IIS - once it is configured through IIS the local port should be accessible through 80/443, it is the tomcat service of eportal which uses the 8080.

 

Try following the instructions in the attachment, see if anything isn't set correctly

Configuring IIS6 for use with ePortal.pdf

[tony_baduk]

Yup that's correct the Tomcat services are using 8080 and 8443, I'll check the IIS settings later and get back to you. Thank you for your help.

[tony_baduk]

Nearly there but I'm baffled with one thing. I've installed an SSL certificate on the IIS server however when I visit the page https://eportal.bellsfarm.org/eportal - the page shows the old Serco certificate which has expired.

 

The IIS certificate details are correct, they're showing the correct FQDN for this site.

 

Is there anyway of disabling the Tomcat services because I have a feeling this is loading the old certifdicate installed on the Tomcat setup.

[tony_baduk]

Hi,

Any further help on this - need to disable the Tomcat service so ePortal just runs on IIS. Thanks!

[michael2k6]

You can't disable the tomcat service as it passess data to the dataserver.exe which in turn passes it to SQL. It's written in Java and hosted in tomcat so you can't turn it off. What you can do though is disable the SSL section by going for server.xml and looking for the bit containing the key to the serco cert. COmment out the entire 443 part and you'll find it doesn't run on 443 any more. I reckon you've got a clash going on with Apache (which is the tomcat you're refering to) using 443 rather than 8443 (default). So it sounds like previously someone used Apache for SSL but changed the port to 443 (which you could do in that file). If you've got that and IIS running one will win, the other will fail. If you want to be sure what's going on at the moment, use netstat or cports to figure out which processes are using which ports and where the traffic's going.

[tony_baduk]

Thanks Michael, I'll comment out the 443 part and see if that stops the Servo cert kicking in. I'll also try netstat to see if that helps.

 

Will get back to you.

[tony_baduk]

I couldn't find the SSL 443 connector part on the server.xml file, this is what my file looks like:

 

 

 

type="org.apache.catalina.UserDatabase"

description="User database that can be updated and saved"

factory="org.apache.catalina.users.MemoryUserDatabaseFactory"

pathname="conf/tomcat-users.xml" />

 

 

 

maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="4"/>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol"

SSLEnabled="true" scheme="https" secure="true"

keystoreFile="/webapps/keystore"

keystorePass="79WSax88" clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" />

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

resourceName="UserDatabase"/>

 

unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="true"

xmlValidation="false" xmlNamespaceAware="false">

 

 

 

[tony_baduk]

Any further help on this please!

[michael2k6]

just do a find on 443 in the file. I'll have a butchers at mine on monday and give you the bit you need.

[tony_baduk]

just do a find on 443 in the file. I'll have a butchers at mine on monday and give you the bit you need.

 

Michael any luck with this? As you can see from the above server.xml file, there is no 443 bit to this, only 8443.