I'm trying to utilize DNN's login facility to help me with an extranet problem. I have a web server that is serving pages only visible to our local LAN (for good reason) so it does not have a public IP assigned and, of course, there is no public DNS entry to go to a private IP address. These pages are generated dynamically and are quite complex so I don't want to move them off this particular server.

I want to have a page on our extranet that can be password controlled and that essentially passes the private page through - just like an iFrame normally would. The problem is that when I use an iFrame, users who are on the LAN (and could normally go directly to the private page anyway) can see it just fine, but when a user is outside the LAN and logs in to DNN, that page times out rather than loading. I had hoped that since both servers are on the LAN and can see each other, and since the iFrame points to the internal (private) IP of the other server that it would be DNN generating the page request to the private server and it would work. Not so much, though. It appears that an iFrame can only display a page the user would be capable of getting to directly anyway - it can't act as a gateway.

Does anyone have any idea how I can use DNN (6.2 btw) to display a web page located on a private IP the DNN server can see, but an internet connected user cannot directly see?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Yes, I understand, but that is not an option. I have over 600 users that need to see this page. They are NOT on our domain. And, this is a concept I will be using more than once in my extranet. The user is on a public IP accessing our DNN server and the DNN server itself needs to be able to access another server on our private IP range. I'm looking for a module that can give me this ability.

The problem with iFrame is that is still essentially uses the browser on the clients computer to feed the request. So, if the client can't see the web page without an iFrame, it can't see the web page even inside the iFrame - although the DNN server itself CAN see the internal webpage.

What I really need is a module that displays another web browser inside DNN. One that has no navigation controls available to the end-user and in the module configuration you point it to it's target page. So, it acts like an iFrame in that it displays a web page from another site - but unlike the iFrame it is the DNN server itself (or rather, that module on the DNN server) that is initiating all the http requests. That way, even if the end-user cannot normally see the web page (such as because it is on a private network and purposely not NAT'd to a public IP) , as long as the DNN server can see it, it can be displayed.

Does that make more sense?

Does anyone know of a module that embeds a simple browser inside a DNN module?