Ports, Firewalls, and Parallell Universes

I have an apache webserver behind a Cisco Pix Firewall to which I have no access. I need to know how to get http, smtp, and pop3 traffic in and out of the server without access to the firewall or compromising security in a major way.

In a related matter, What exactly is the 'port' in the httpd.conf file? If I set it to something other than 80, how do I get browsers to find the server?

Thanks for help.

>> What exactly is the 'port' in the httpd.conf file?

That's the port Apache listens to.

>> If I set it to something other than 80, how do I get browsers to find the server?

You have to specify the port explicitly in location bar. Whatever port you choose, the firewall more than likely will drop connection as well.

>> I need to know how to get http, smtp, and pop3 traffic in and out of the server without access to the firewall

Most likely you can't. If you need to discuss this further, please tell us what kind of privilege you do have.

->What is a port?

->I can do anything that I want with the server itself. I have no privaleges with the firewall and it is in a different location. I have been told that we can get a 'hole' in the firewall, but I'm not sure what that means.

>> I can do anything that I want with the server itself

That doesn't help.

>> I have no privaleges with the firewall

That's the problem.

>> I have been told that we can get a 'hole' in the firewall

Depending on the firewall setup, you may be able to find some unused open port for your Apache, and more than likely it's port > 1024.

Do you know the address of the firewall in the system?

Don't look strange that it's 10.0.0.1 or 10.0.0.138 or something similar depending on the architecture...
Ok and please don't boo me as i am don't encurridge to hack but you can use a normal ipV4 portscanner on the firewall...
Mind you though that probably your efford will get logged depending on the quality of your network admin...
One thing puzzles me though, how do you want to let your "customers know what port they have to use on their browser?" you realy need to be on either port 80 or port 443 (ssl) to get to your customers at first...

Best tip?
Bribe your admin, he is the weakest security link... lololol...