Hooking domain to home server with port

Question

Alright, I'm asking two things here.

First of all, if i purchase a domain let's say myhomeserver.com, am I able to make the default port go through a different port instead of the default port 80? (that is without having to do myhomeserver.com:5000 for example). Also this should be without blocking other ports (so no stealth forwarding to myhomeserver.com:5000 i think)

Secondly, How could I go about hooking a domain to a windows 2008 server? I've seen it on linux but no clue how to do it on windows if it's even possible.

I know I'm asking a lot here, just some tips are appereciated. Also, yes I know, using a home server is horrible for security and preformance and whatnot, I understand this already, thanks ^^

Answer 1

The URL format http://someaddress.com:port tells the browser to connect to that IP address (after resolution) on that port. The only way to enter http://someaddress.com and have it go to a different port other than 80 is to have a proxy in the middle transparently forwarding the traffic. Meaning you will probably have to have someaddress.com pointing to a different system outside of your home, where a proxy is running, to accomplish that. This is probably the "stealth forwarding" you may be talking about but unfortunately there is no other way.

Windows Active Directory domains are a different in concept than "DNS" domains.

The DNS domain name where your server can be reached is just translated to an IP address after a DNS lookup.

An Active Directory domain is a forest (consisting of multiple trees) of systems in which:

• the server is used for authentication and
• in which members of that domain receive configuration information from a distributed database of group policies from one or more servers on the forest.
• and other features, such as software publishing and other things

Active Directory servers can run DHCP and DNS, and I believe configuration can be controlled through AD Group Policy, but other than that there is no relation, and getting your own DNS domain name doesn't automatically do anything in Active Directory.