Home Web/E-mail hosting with BT Business Broadband

[nsherin]

Hiya,

 

Just a couple of quick questions regarding hosting one's own domain with BT

Business broadband. I've gone for option 2 with a static IP address and my own

domain name. The plan is to host my own website, mail server (MS Exchange) and

provide RDP/VPN access to my network. I will be using the router that is supplied as standard with BT Business broadband.

 

My queries are as follows:

 

1) I will need to put the LAN IP address of the server into the DMZ (De-Militarised Zone) of the router settings

2) I will need to contact BT's help desk to point the zone of my primary domain to the static IP address of my server

 

Do I need to enter any other static IP address settings as part of the Windows Server confirguation or is simply adding the LAN IP address into the router's DMZ enough to get my server talking to the outside world - initially by IP address, then as per question 2 above, once DNS records have propergated?

 

Any advice on the above is much appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Neil

[SYNACK]

1) A more secure plan would be to just open up the ports nessisary for thet services that you intend to offer using the virtual servers section of your router config. Stuff like port 80 and 443 for web traffic, 110 for pop3, 25 for smtp mail etc. Opening it up fully will expose your server to all sorts of additional risk even if you have locked it down extremely well.

 

2) You will probably need to talk to BT and tell them what subdomains of your domain name you would like pointed where. for instance you could point both www and mail at your static ip and ask them to add a mx record pointing to mail so that your server can recive inbound email. If you want your site hosted somewhere else simply have them point the www subdomain at the ip of your external host.

 

Once this is setup and your web server and email server are configured then they should be able to talk to the outside world fine.

[nsherin]

Thanks SYNACK for your reply.

 

Have done some more Googling and it looks like port forwarding, opening up only the relvent ports is the way to go, as opposed to the 'all open' aspects of a DMZ. I definately prefer the secure approach!

 

Alos contacted BT regarding DNS pointers - just awaiting a reply back after filling in the required web form. Have asked them to point mail and web to my static IP.

 

I should have my broadband connection active by next Tuesday - having moved house, so then I can get the router set up and the server install built.

[RabbieBurns]

Unless your domain is registered/hosted with BT, they wont be able to change any of the DNS entries I wouldnt have thought. You need to contact the company hosting your domain, and get them to add/change records that point http://www.yourdomain.com, mail.yourdomain.com whatever, to your static IP. Most hosting companies let you do this yourself via a control panel, but if you dont know what your doing, I would get them to do it for you.

 

And as synack says, opening just the ports needed is the best option. If its the HGV2700 2Wire modem youve got, its fairly straight forward.

 

I had the multi IP package, and ran 2 nameservers, and completely hosted / administred all my domains locally. Now I use Domain City - DomainCity, Low Cost Domain Name Registration,Web Site Hosting, Email Spam Virus Scanning to host the DNS for it, and I just edit the record to point www. mail. etc at my single IP.

 

PS. I ditched BT business 5 months into my contract. They were throttling the connection between 6pm and midnight from day 1, just like any residential account. And with 10 machines trying to use the internet simultaneously, it just wasnt feasible to continue. They let me out of my contract early after threatening to take them to court

Edited August 11, 2009 by RabbieBurns
added / changed a bit

[RabbieBurns]

PS, you can also ask BT to set the reverse DNS, so that when someone looks up your IP, it will be blah.yourdomain.com rather than blah.blah.blah.bt.crap.bt.com - some mail servers round the world auto-blacklist mail from ISP accounts, so it might be advantageous if your running mail servers..

[SYNACK]

PS, you can also ask BT to set the reverse DNS, so that when someone looks up your IP, it will be blah.yourdomain.com rather than blah.blah.blah.bt.crap.bt.com - some mail servers round the world auto-blacklist mail from ISP accounts, so it might be advantageous if your running mail servers..

 

Good call, this is a very good thing to do as if you are running your own mail server and it is sending out directly to the world rather than a smart host like BTs own servers this is a nessisity. Most of the larger providers will run a revers DNS and block your email as spam if it is not the same as your mail domain.

 

For a smaller setup it will probably be easier to set up your mail server to send all emails out via your ISPs mail server, as you are there customer they will trust your server and it will pass the mail out with your address to the rest of the world. This is easier as any trust issues are dealt with by your ISP which usually has a lot more time and clout to deal with hulking nightmares like yahoo or google mail and their own specific trust issues. Just have a chat to their business tech support to make sure that they offer that facility first though .

[nsherin]

Unless your domain is registered/hosted with BT, they wont be able to change any of the DNS entries I wouldnt have thought. You need to contact the company hosting your domain, and get them to add/change records that point http://www.yourdomain.com, mail.yourdomain.com whatever, to your static IP. Most hosting companies let you do this yourself via a control panel, but if you dont know what your doing, I would get them to do it for you.

 

Thanks - my domain is registered with BT, so have contacted them. Not 100% sure what I'm doing, so have asked them to make the changes.

[nsherin]

Good call, this is a very good thing to do as if you are running your own mail server and it is sending out directly to the world rather than a smart host like BTs own servers this is a nessisity. Most of the larger providers will run a revers DNS and block your email as spam if it is not the same as your mail domain.

 

For a smaller setup it will probably be easier to set up your mail server to send all emails out via your ISPs mail server, as you are there customer they will trust your server and it will pass the mail out with your address to the rest of the world. This is easier as any trust issues are dealt with by your ISP which usually has a lot more time and clout to deal with hulking nightmares like yahoo or google mail and their own specific trust issues. Just have a chat to their business tech support to make sure that they offer that facility first though .

 

Thanks - will forward outgoing mail via BT's server - sounds like it's the sensible thing to do.