Can't get URL connections that originate from LAN to work on the LAN side!

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Greetings All,

Although I’m still a quite the newbie on Mikrotik’s RouterOS, I finally managed to get most of my issues resolved successfully except for one!!

My past DIY experience has never presented me with this type of problem, I just don’t know enough about RouterOS to diagnose and fix the following issue.

Background:
I have two running web/server apps. Each with its own internal port# and a different Dst.Port# (from the WAN side).
I can access each web/server app from the WAN side using a “https://example.com:port#” without any issues at all.
I have everything running perfectly on my Linksys E4200 with AdvancedTomato installed, but I want to retire the Linksys and replace it with my new Mikrotik.

My issue:
Behind the Mikrotik router, and on the same LAN as the web/server apps, I have agent apps on different machines that access these web/server apps using the same FQDN using wss protocol (wss://example.com:port#), but the web/server apps sees all agent apps install on machines on the wan side (family & friends) but does not see any agent apps running on any of my local machines! FYI… everything else works on my LAN!

And probably for the same reason, the following doesn’t work either … If I enter https://example.com:port# in a browser (on the LAN side) accessing a web/server app on the same LAN, I get back “This site can’t be reached” and “example.com refused to connect.”

After reading the manual and googling around, I tried several suggested solutions, but nothing worked.

Is it a firewall issue, is it a NAT issue, is it a Mikrotik’s DNS misconfiguration … I just don’t know!

I’m pretty sure this is a rookie problem, but I am too much of a newbie on RouterOS for this last piece.

Can someone please help me out?

Thanks

2

Since you don’t put a network diagram here, I assume that this could be a hairpin NAT issue please make a small diagram so that other can help you out, assuming proper routing was in place you can also solved this issue using split horizon DNS

3

Hi loloski, Thanks for your suggestion! Absolutely, that is a great idea! I will definitely add one over the next couple of days!
Oops, I used the wrong term in my description! I should have used the term “Agent” instead of “Client” I will fix this in my original post and start working on the diagram.
I also updated the description of my issue! Sorry, but I’m new to this… off to work on the diagram!

4

While waiting for the diagram,
if you have users in the same subnet as the servers and they are attempting to reach the server via domainname/url then the easy fix is
a. change server or users to a different subnet
otherwise
b. need a hairpin nat rule
/ip firewall nat
add chain=srnat action=masquerade src-address=serversubnet dst-address=serversubnet.

And likely some other changes in dstnat rules and possible firewall rules.