Question about forwarding

[dangermouse501]

Could somebody explain to me how I accomplish the following task:-

I want to host a number of different web sites on physically different pieces of kit behind a Virgin router.   Ordinarily, I would just have 1 web server where I define all my sites.  Then I would just use port forwarding to 1 web server.  Since I cannot configure the DNS server (123reg) with ports, it's not actually possible to port forward to different local NAT IP addresses depending on what domain is being called externally.

So…  I understand that I need a Layer 7 Firewall type thingymajig.  Is it possible to configure pfSense so that it sees what domain name is being requested, and then forward to a defined local LAN address?  In other words, looks at the http header.

Failing that, does pfSense have it's own DNS?  And if so, would that even be a solution?

As you can see, I'm not totally up to scratch on this.  If somebody could tell me how I do this it would be great.

One option I understand is to run a separate apache server and do a re-direct.  I don't want to do it this way as it involves running yet another server.

[doktornotor]

@dangermouse501:

Is it possible to configure pfSense so that it sees what domain name is being requested, and then forward to a defined local LAN address?  In other words, looks at the http header.

This is a job of the webserver and/or reverse proxy… you are trying to solve the problem at completely wrong place.

[wallabybob]

Take a look at the pfSense Packages (System -> Packages). Proxy Server with mod_security (among others) looks like it might meet the requirement.

[dangermouse501]

@wallabybob:

Take a look at the pfSense Packages (System -> Packages). Proxy Server with mod_security (among others) looks like it might meet the requirement.

Many thanks.  I'll take a look.

[dangermouse501]

@wallabybob:

Take a look at the pfSense Packages (System -> Packages). Proxy Server with mod_security (among others) looks like it might meet the requirement.

I have multiple servers running different operating systems.  Is 1 web server going to solve this?  Actually, it's usually the job of a DNS server to direct to the correct IP.  Just I'm not sure it's possible to direct 1 public ip to many nat ip's.

[doktornotor]

What you want is absolutely not a job for DNS server. You need some webserver with a proxy which will look at the HTTP headers and redirect the requests to appropriate internal servers according to the requested hostname. Simple Apache example:

 <virtualhost *:80="">ServerName server1.example.com
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyRequests off
    ProxyPass / http://192.168.1.1/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://192.168.1.1/</virtualhost> 

 <virtualhost *:80="">ServerName server2.example.com
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyRequests off
    ProxyPass / http://192.168.1.2/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://192.168.1.2/</virtualhost> 

 <virtualhost *:80="">ServerName server3.example.com
    ProxyPreserveHost On
    ProxyRequests off
    ProxyPass / http://192.168.1.3/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://192.168.1.3/</virtualhost> 

You forward all requests to port 80 to this server, which deals with the rest.

Reading: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_proxy.html