Topic: Implement Customer Download ibay process

[Donquick]

Hi all,

I am trying to implement a facility for my customers so that i can use part of my server disk as a receptacle for files that i can let my customers download.  I have read the docs and now have a good idea of how to set up an ibay for this function and which setting I should use.  I also have a modest understanding of the DNS ramifications viz. needing to contact my ISP and establish that there is a DNS change required to direct the external user to my server rather than that of the ISP.  However, there are one or two details that i could use some help with.

Ideally i want to leave my main website, www.myco.com, hosted at my ISP.  I would like to then have customer.myco.com or www.myco.com/customers, i don't mind which, hosted locally.  [I realise that i can acheive the same net result by just create a subdomain at the ISP and use that, but there is a lot of file copying required and i don't want to have to ftp everything to the ISP all day long.]

So first question is this - can i split the DNS so that normal web traffic resolves to the ISP and 'customer' directory traffic resolves to my SME, or will i need to consider hosting the whole website in order to achieve this.  Also, if the latter, would i then need to start thinking about dealing with my own mail too.

When i set up SME i didn't know what i was doing so i just put the primary domain as myco rather than myco.com.  So in my configuration all my domains look half built, like http://www.myco  The second question is - will i need to change the primary domain to myco.com before i stand any chance of success here or can i just leave it and set up a pseudo domain as customers.myco.com - or perhaps i don't need either if the ibay is set up.  What would people recommend.

The third question, sorry, is this - do i need to change from server only to server and gateway to have any chance of success here.

The final question is this - do you think i need to change any settings on my router/firewall/modem box to allow for the public access traffic to SME.

As you can probably tell, i have done a good bit of reading here and understand the principles and how to do many of the tasks, but i would be gratefull for some advice on how to put it all together from somebody who has travelled this path.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Don

[CharlieBrady]

So first question is this - can i split the DNS so that normal web traffic resolves to the ISP and 'customer' directory traffic resolves to my SME, ...

Yes, you just need a hostname customer.myco.com in your DNS (if your DNS  provider is competent they will be able to do that - you need an A record), and you create a domain customer.myco.com in the server-manager of your SME server. You will need to set www.myco.com to be your externally hosted www.myco.com IP address in the hostnames panel of the server-manager (so that you can viiw www.myco.com from within your network).

[Donquick]

Thanks Charlie,

I have now set up what i need, I think.  I'm not sure if it is the done thing to do this, but i will just run through the steps I did below in case it is useful for any other user.

Thanks,

Don

a)  At the isp, set up a subdomain called customer.yourname.com.  change the DNS A name to the ip address of your router (ihave fixed IP so easier than if you have dynamic i believe).
b)  At router control panel - enable port forwarding on port 80 for HTTP with the internal ip address of your SME (ensure that you have fixed ip for SME)
c) In SME set up an ibay called customers with group: everyone,  access: write=group read = everyone, public access:  Entire Internet (no password), dynamic content: disabled

That's about it i think.  I seemed to get away without changing my default domain or changing from server only to server + gateway.  I am going to do some more testing, but so far so good i think.

If you use the html directory of the ibay for file storage rather than the files directory then you can use the simple http://customers.myco.com/myfile.txt reference rather than the slightly more http://customers.myco.com/file/mytext.txt

[cactus]

If you use the html directory of the ibay for file storage rather than the files directory then you can use the simple http://customers.myco.com/myfile.txt reference rather than the slightly more http://customers.myco.com/file/mytext.txt

IIRC correctly that should be http://customers.myco.com/files/mytext.txt