[Elliott]

I installed a personal server on my comp a while back, and I'm wondering how I can enable it so people can access it from other computers. I pinged localhost and used that address, but it didn't work. Any other ideas, or helpful links?

[The Postman]

I believe you need some kind of outside IP address for it to work. A simple router isn't enough. Unless you already know... Which then I shall shut my mouth, as that is the extent of my knowledge of servers.

[Nick Presta]

Use your IP address (YOUR IP ADDRESS, not your address assigned by your router). Configure your router to route port 80 (or whatever port is your http port - setup via Apache. Default is 80) to your DHCP assigned address (or if you're using static, which is better for a server, use that address). Then, go to dyndns.com or somewhere similar and setup a static DNS service. Choose the extension (I picked ath.cx) and bind it to your IP address (outside address).

So I have my router forwarding port 80 (http) to 192.168.1.102 (my server machine) and I have my IP address setup at dyndns.com to nickpresta.ath.cx.

[Elliott]

How would I get my router to route port 80 to my IP address?

[Nick Presta]

It should either be in a section called "Port Forwarding" or "UNuP Forwarding" or something with the words "forwarding".

[Elliott]

Talk about a pain in the ass.
I got a domain name, but when I attempt to access it, it sends me to the ntcomm configuration panel. I put 80 80 80 and then my IP into port forwarding, with the TCP setting, as well as entering my details into the DDNS part. Any idea why it wouldn't be working?

[Nick Presta]

Umm, it's router specific but I just do three steps;

1. Open Command Promp, IPCONFIG it. Find your address (192.168.1.xxx).
2. Go to Whatismyip.com and find your IP.
3. Go to dyndns setup a static DNS redirect on your IP address (from WIMIP.com). Go to my router and forward my http port (port 80) to the xxx machine (xxx being from your ip address LAN side).

Let it resolve and in about 15mins, you're done.

[Elliott]

Haha awesome, now all I need to do is get it so when it goes to the domain name, it goes to the index.php page, and I'm set. Thanks Nick (not all of that made complete sense, but it sent me in the right direction :D ).

[Nick Presta]

You need to tell apache that a php page can be an "index page".
Go to where Apache is installed and head into the 'conf' directory. Open up 'httpd.conf' in notepad or something.

Find this:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
    DirectoryIndex index.html index.htm 
</IfModule>

And make it look like this:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
    DirectoryIndex index.php index.php3 index.html index.htm 
</IfModule>

If you don't use php3, don't worry about that.
That will allow you to use php pages for your index.


Also, if you have configured php to work with your server than a simple page like

<?php
echo "hi";
?>

should work.

If it doesn't work (and you actually see echo and such) then find this line in httpd.conf

  #
    # AddType allows you to tweak mime.types without actually editing it, or to
    # make certain files to be certain types.
    #
    AddType application/x-tar .tgz

And make it look like this

  #
    # AddType allows you to tweak mime.types without actually editing it, or to
    # make certain files to be certain types.
    #
    AddType application/x-tar .tgz
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php3
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .phtml

All done.