Could you please give some more information. Do you want to access SharePoint over the Internet?
How you access or can access sharepoint depends on the setup. I am running an extranet solution where SharePoint can be accessed over the internet and then I have an internal environment which can only be accessed if you are on the company network.
SO if possible, please give us some more information on what you want to achieve.
There are 2 ways I want to access sharepoint. For example I have set up a small sharepoint server portal on my windows 2003 server and I want someone to access it from their computer...how do I go about doing that.
Also sharepoint is also set up on this company's network...is there anyway I can access that from my computer?
Well that is connected through a network. Lets say you are trying to connect to my sharepoint website that I developed on my computer from your computer. How would you do that?
You would need to install sharepoint on the 2nd computer create a portal on the 2nd computer then backup the sharepoint dbs on the first computer and restore the first computers sharepoint dbs over the top of the 2nd computers sharepoint dbs.
Actually, that sounds more like migrating on top. What i want to do is for you to able to access my sharepoint website by typing in the url of my site. Just like Thomas2000 is running an extranet solution where it can accessed over the internet. I want it to able to do that. Do i have to mess with IIS configuration to do that or something I have to mess with under sharepoint?
I simply want a user to able to type in my url address for example
Can you get to your server from the Internet or is it hiding behing a firewall? If you have a firewall, from the url above you will need to make sure port 1820 is open, being that it is not your standard port 80 for http it is probably closed, maybe thats the issue? The more info you can give the better.
and I just get a error that the page cannot be displayed. I am sure you have to connect somehow in order to access it or mess with some settings. I just dont know what that is.
Thomas2000 if you could also explain how did you set up the sharepoint so it can be accessed through the internet.
SharePoint Portal Server sites can be accessed via the Internet, however, these are the issues that should be considered.
1. It is recommended to use a hardened proxy server (such as Microsoft ISA) on a DMZ zone. This will allow you to have your server hosting the sharepoint app., databases on a trusted (internal) network. Detailed instructions can be found at the following URL:
2. There are different ways of doing this depending on how the domain/network is setup. Compliance negates creating accounts that are only local to the sharepoint environment, as well as authenticating users that come from external sources with, for example, an internal Active Directory. These are NOT options since it would entail exposing a domain member-server or the SharePoint server to the outside world. There are always risks involved when making a system available from the internet. HTTPS (SSL) is a MUST have, and we would also need a certificate (issued by a CA such as Verisign). Also planning and getting ALL the information regarding which network ports etc. that need to be opened in a firewall is very important. In your case if you would expose your SharePoint server to the internet (or DMZ zone) all the ports we would have to open in the firewall would actually make the firewall irrelevant (i.e. it would be as if we did not have a firewall at all).
3. The following setup can be done, however, I would have problems recommending this as a solution. Set up an environment using a stand alone server on a DMZ zone, running basic authentication over SSL (HTTPS). The only thing hosted on your internal network would be the SQL databases using SQL server authentication and only one open port in the firewall to that specific SQL server. This would not be the recommended solution(compliance concerns), as the option of using a hardened proxy is the most secure way it could be setup. It is highly recommended to use a hardened proxy on the DMZ zone with ISA server and SSL certificates(mentioned in the first paragraph).
4. Alternatively, you could use a VPN, which is the way ours is setup now and this is the most secure, and cost efficient way of accessing our sharepoint environment from outside the office. I know that it might be a pain having to do the VPN connection etc, but it would cause you even more problems if your entire network gets hacked. It would not really be a question of If..but When.
Thanks a lot for that post, it is still valuable and teaches me some information and I appreciate the time you put in writing that even though that is more office environment related. This is my situation:
I installed sharepoint portal server on windows 2003 with sql server 2000. I created a portal site through central administration and I use this as a testing environment, add some web parts and test it etc...I have not set up any firewall except the default stuff that comes with windows 2003. The url for the portal site is
Now I want to access this portal site from a friends laptop which is not connected in any kind of network to my laptop. How would I able to do that w/o using program such as VPN? Do i have to use programs such as VPN? A friend told me once he accessed someone's portal site on their home system by just typing in the portal url and then authenticating but he wasnt sure how his friend set that up. So do I have to mess wiht setting in IIS or central admin; maybe allow anonymous access or something like that?
Thanks a lot guys for your posts till now and I would appreciate more help.
This isn't so much a SharePoint issue/IIS issue, as a general "running a website on your own server" issue.
For your friend to be able to access your server, somehow there has to be a connection between his computer and yours. If you are using the machine name (i.e. hapinder), that'll only work if you both are in the same LAN, which it sounds like you're not.
Now, this should work unless you have a firewall or a router. A router will also act like a firewall, since only the ports that you specify will be accessible. You'd need to go to your router settings and specify that port 80 should connect to your machine.
Last but not least, if you want an actual domain name, like
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