1. Home
  2. Knowledge Base
  3. Softalk
  4. Softalk Share Server
  5. How can I install a Softalk Share Server client to connect across the internet?

How can I install a Softalk Share Server client to connect across the internet?

Detail

If you wish to configure an Outlook client that is not located inside the network to connect to a Softalk Share Server, you will not be able to remotely install the client software from the Administrator program and neither will you be able run the ClientSetup.exe from the ‘Softalk Share Server Client Setup’ share, since you will not have access to the files on the network.

In this case you need to download the standalone Softalk Share Server client setup program and run this program on the remote computer. Running this client setup program is almost identical to running client setup whilst inside the network, except that the client setup wizard has an additional page which asks for the name or IP address of the computer running Softalk Share Server. You must enter a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or the WAN facing IP address for the server. If a non default port is to be used then specify this by adding a colon followed by the port number

eg. example.com:8110 or 208.77.188.166:8110

Provided the computer running Softalk Share Server is accessible from the Internet, either directly or through NAT port forwarding, you will be able to run Outlook against the Softalk Share Server store from the remote location. Depending on the speed of the connection to the server, the operation of Outlook may be a little slower than if it was on the network, but in most cases it is sufficiently fast.

Click here to download the Softalk Share Server standalone client setup program.

In a usual business situation the computer running Softalk Share Server will not be Internet facing, but instead be behind a router or firewall. The actual router will be the only device that has the external IP address(es); the other devices will have a non-routable IP address (usually 192.168.x.y or 10.x.y.z), these addresses are called non-routable as all routers will not route these addresses.

It is not possible to access these hosts from the WAN side of the router; therefore a technology called NAT (Network Address Translation) will need to be employed. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation for more information.

It is not possible to describe how to configure every router; it is recommend that you search for NAT or Network address translation in your router manual.

The Softalk Share Serverserver should first be configured with a fixed IP address; it is not good practice for a server to have a dynamic IP address.

For this example, let the Softalk Share Server server have an internal IP address of 192.168.0.22 and the router have IP address on the LAN side of 192.168.0.1

By visiting the IP address of the router on the LAN side using a web browser it is usually possible to configure various settings of your router. You may require a password to log into the router.

The router should have an option called Port Forwarding or NAT, go into this option.

To configure a rule for Softalk Share Server a port forwarding rule must be added.
Set the external port to 8110, and set the internal address to 192.168.0.22 and the port to 8110, you may need to enter 192.168.0.22:8110 on some systems. This will route packets coming from the WAN side on port 8100 to the host 192.168.0.22 on the LAN side to port 8100.
Therefore if a client uses your external address then packets will be routed to 192.168.0.22 giving the impression that the Softalk Share Server server is listening on the external address on port 8110. You can of course have different servers

Was this article helpful?

Related Articles

Contents

Need Support?

Can't find the answer you're looking for?
Contact Support