how to access a server which is the LAN

[olin]

I have several computers in my office LAN. These computers access internet via a router and all of them have a internal IP of 192.168.1.*. I made one of them as a ftp server, and obviously it can be accessed by other computers in the LAN. The problem is how an external computer can access this ftp server. Any suggestions are appreciated!

OS: Windows

Thank you!

 

[smah]

Set your router to for port forwarding (or virtual host on some). Forward port 21 to the internal IP address of the FTP server. Then, the users outside need to to connect to the public (WAN) IP address of your router; they will be 'forwarded' to the internal machine.

 

[olin]

Thank you!

I have a confusion here. If there are two computers both with same port forwarding setting in the router configuration. What will it happen? Thank you!

 

[smah]

You can't do that. With a basic router & with 1 public IP address, any particular port can only be forwarded to 1 location (computer). Do you really need to run 2 FTP servers?

 

[olin]

Thanks! I am just curious . Actually, even if I want to run two ftp servers, I can change the ports of them.

 

[bcastner]

Use notepad to edit:
%windir%\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS

Any entry here takes precedence over a DNS server address. See for a general explanation:

http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html