Hosting a public openfire server

Just wondering if anyone hosts a public openfire server AND has need to access the server from the local network as well??? My initial tests on doing this are not looking too good, have I totally missed something here? If this is not possible is it on the roadmap?

http://www.igniterealtime.org/forum/thread.jspa?threadID=25209&tstart=0

It appears that there are many of you out there using OpenFire. Just curious what you install is like? Are you using it on the local network only? I am just baffled that no one out there is seeing the issues I am…

see link above