How can Apache use a private network?

A couple of months ago, I was helping a friend debug some logging scripts
at one of his customers - a typical small business with a Linux file
server and Apache web server along with a couple dozen XP desktops. The
setup was simple with a cable modem feeding a Smoothwall firewall on an
old clunker and then onto a 192.168.0.0 internal network.

Fast forward to last night as I planned my new home network with Apache
server, if the Telco ever gets around to running the wire out here. (Any
day now was the answer last July) The setup would be just like the above
company's, except smaller. Then a bad thought flashed up as suddenly as a
BSOD on a MS product. The Internet server at that company shouldn't have
worked.

I haven't kept up on my networking since I retired, but you can't have an
Internet visible server on a private network. Can you? I didn't pay much
attention to the equipment rack, but as I remember all they had were some
ordinary switches - certainly not some fancy segmenting switch/router that
might allow for the above.

Now as I think back, there must have been a separate ethernet link that I
didn't notice for Apache to be able to bypass the internal network. Or
have I missed a major advancement in the state-of-the-art of private
networking?

EVMan

EVman wrote:

> ... you can't have an
> Internet visible server on a private network. Can you?

Google [NAT]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:16:54 +0100, Thomas Schodt wrote:

> EVman wrote:
>
>> ... you can't have an
>> Internet visible server on a private network. Can you?
>
> Google [NAT]

Yep, you are right. I probably knew that once, but use it or lose it.

Thanks
EVMan