Deploy Seafile behind NAT

To achieve this, you need:

• A router which supports port forwarding
• Use a dynamic DNS Service
• Modify your seafile server configuration

• Setup the server
• Use a dynamic dns serivce

First, you should follow the guide on Download and Setup Seafile Server to setup your Seafile server.

Before you continue, make sure:

• You can visit your seahub website
• You can download/sync a library through your seafile client

Ensure Your Router Supports Port Forwarding

First, ensure your router supports port forwarding.

Seafile server is composed of several components. If you deployed Seafile behind Apache/Nginx you need to configure port forward for all the components listed below.

If you do not deployed Seafile behind Apache/Nginx you need to configure port forward for all the components listed below. (not recomended!)

• If you’re not using the default ports, you should adjust the table accroding to your own customiztion.

How to test if your port forwarding is working

After you have set the port forwarding rules on your router, you can check whether it works by:

• Open a command line prompt
• Get your WAN IP. A convenient way to get your WAN ip is to visit , which would show you your WAN IP.
• Try to connect your seahub server

If your port forwarding is working, the command above should succeed. Otherwise, you may get a message saying something like connection refused or connection timeout.

If your port forwarding is not working, the reasons may be:

• You have configured a wrong port forwarding
• Your router may need a restart
• You network may be down

Most routers support NAT loopback. When your access Seafile web from intranet, file download/upload still works even when external IP is used.

Why use a Dynamic DNS(DDNS) Service?

Having done all the steps above, you should be able to visit your seahub server outside your LAN by your WAN IP. But for most people, the WAN IP address is likey to change regularly by their ISP(Internet Serice Provider), which makes this approach impratical.

You can use a dynamic DNS(DDNS) Service to overcome this problem. By using a dynamic DNS service, you can visit your seahub by domain name (instead of by IP), and the domain name will always be mapped to your WAN IP address, even if it changes regularly.

There are a dozen of dynmaic DNS service providers on the internet. If you don’t know what service to choose We recommend using www.noip.com since it performs well in our testing.

The detailed process is beyond the scope of this wiki. But basically, you should:

1. Choose a DDNS service provider
2. Download a client from your DDNS service provider to keep your domain name always mapped to your WAN IP

Restart your seafile server after this.