Super weird confluence connection problem

[sujoe]

Hi, I just successfully installed Confluence 3.5.9 on CentOS 6. I'm looking at this super weird problem. Let me explain.

- Confluence is installed on CentOS 6 box (Internal IP: 192.168.2.146) behind the firewall.

Hostname assigned is neptune.twinova.com

Port 8080 and 8000 is forwarded to CentOS 6 box.

- I am able to access Confluence by typing in http://neptune.twinova.com:8080/ and also http://192.168.2.146:8080/ within our LAN (behind the firewall).

Problem: When I get out of the building and try to connect to http://neptune.twinova.com:8080/ from a lot of places (my home, starbucks, friends' office), I could never seem to load confluence at all.

I can telnet into neptune.twinova.com 8080 without any problems at all.

I tried all possible things I can think of, I would really appreciate if you could help me to solve this.

Thanks in advance

[Martin Cooper]

Sounds like a firewall / Network security issue. Whilst the port may be forwarded there can still be a rule that prevents any port being accepted as part of a URL. I have seen this a few times where only plain URLs were allowed.

I would check that out first and also that there are no ip range rules on the firewall blocking access from any unknown IPs.

You might want to set up an apache server in front of Confluence as is normally more firewall / security friendly and can then easily serve over port 80. This could also be a good quick test, as if can see the apache welcome page externally, then you know the problem lies with the port on the URL.

Also just to doublecheck - the hostname is recognised externally and is not just on an internal dns (I know you said you could telnet to it I assume thats externally, but just trying to cover all bases)