I've grappled with running public and private network services on public and private networks for many years. While my setup remains far from perfect, its really starting to take shape as a reliable and manageable configuration.
Because I feel like my situation is fairly common and that the strategies that I and many others have employed to fix the situation are poorly organized and only somewhat well documented, I'm considering a new Docunext Series called "Behind the Firewall: Public and Private Services CAN Get Along".
Some random ideas:
- What to do when your webserver wants to access a service that is hosted on itself when the hostname is defined by a public DNS record which points to a public IP address?
- How to securely and conveniently access a local area network from the outside?
Defining the series:
- History - Public vs. Private, Limited IPv4 space, Local Area Networks, Firewalls, and Network Address Translation
- Bridging the Divide - Virtual Private Networks
- Microcosms - Using Internet Theories on the LAN
- Bridging the Divide Part II - Proxies, Host Names, Tunnels, and Recursion
- Security - Network Based Security, Access Control Lists, SASL, and Working with Dynamic IP Addresses
- Conclusion - Looking Forward to IPv6