Ask Dr. Intranet, 12/15/97

Error 404--Not Found

From RFC 2068 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1:

10.4.5 404 Not Found

The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent.

If the server does not wish to make this information available to the client, the status code 403 (Forbidden) can be used instead. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address.

Ask Dr. IntraNet
Please step in and lie down, Steve Blass, is in for consultations. He understands the strains felt by people developing and managing intranets. Send your problems to dr.intranet@paranet.com

Q Internet Web servers are denying access to my intranet clients with static IP addresses because of Domain Name System (DNS) reverse lookup errors. I've installed "named" on our SunSoft, Inc. Solaris Unix server, which successfully communicates updates to our Internet service provider's DNS server, and I can ping the client names from the Internet. So why won't the reverse DNS lookups work?

-Via the Internet

A You can solve this problem by including the reverse lookup information in your DNS database files. This is sometimes called "named.rev'' and provides the DNS database for the in.addr.arpa domain, which maps IP addresses backwards into host names.

After creating named.rev, edit named. boot to include named.rev and restart the "named'' process. You can use nslookup or dig to verify that your IP address-to-host name reverse lookups succeed.

Q Can I provide secure intranet access for roaming Windows 95 clients using Microsoft Corp.'s Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) through generic Internet PPP connections?

- Via the Internet

A Yes, and here's how. You'll need a multihomed NT PPTP/remote access server with one interface on your intranet and another on the Internet. The clients will need PPTP software, which you can get from third-party vendors or as part of Microsoft's Dial Up Networking Windows 95 upgrade. The latter is available for free at www.microsoft.com.

After you've upgraded, double-click on Dial Up Networking's Make New Connection icon, choose Microsoft VPN Adaptor in the Select A Device box and enter a server IP address. These actions will create a Dial Up Networking icon for the PPTP server.

To use PPTP, users would connect to your ISP with PPP and double-click on the PPTP server's Dial Up Networking icon. This establishes an encrypted tunnel from the client to the intranet PPTP server over the Internet.

Check out Microsoft's Knowledge Base for helpful server routing and remote access server configuration tips for extending the PPTP tunnel throughout the intranet

Blass is a network architect at Houston-based Sprint Paranet, a distributed computing systems services provider.

Feedback | Network World, Inc. | Sponsor index
How to Advertise | Copyright