New install localhost ok, need help how to assign my IP.

[Skepticus]

Hi.

I only have a normal ADSL home users account, and the ISP doesn't support PHP, or FTP access on their server. As I am trying to set up a disscussion board, this won't do so I decided to set up a webserver on my own machine. It is a 1.7 gig Pentium 4 128 meg running SimplyMepis 3.3 and KDE.

I have just installed Apache 1.3.33-8 and I seem to have it working as an intranet on the localhost. Realising that I have no domain name I have signed up for a free domain '

http://brights.selfip.org'

at dyndns.com. Typing this URL into a browser window (or clicking on the link) takes me to: "

http://brights.selfip.org/hag/pages/home.ssi"

which is actualy the modem setup page of my ISP (optusnet.com.au). It is personalised with my settings and gives my IP as:

220.238.101.163

Now I understand that as this is a dynamic IP so I do have to update my settings with this IP at DynDNS each time my broadband is shutdown. unless I install some software to dynamicly update it or a router.

In httpd.conf it tells you:

#Note: You cannot just invent host names and hope they work.
#The name you define here must be a valid DNS name for your
#host. If you don't understand this, ask your network
#administrator. If your host doesn't have a registered DNS
#name, enter its IP address here. You will have to access it
#by its address (e.g.,

http://123.45.67.89/)

anyway, and
#this will make redirections work in a sensible way.

When I installed SimplyMepis I had no network and only named this machine Darwin (probably should have left the 'D' in lowercase) and I have no idea where a machine with no DNS is supposed to get its full hostname. putting in 'Darwin' or 'darwin' doesn't seem to work, neither does entering my IP address. The URL is not connecting to the document root on my machine even though the server is working.
BTW, I am remembering to restart the server after each edit.

Do I need a DNS? I thought that is what DynDNS is for.

Also I changed my document root in httpd.conf to the subdirectory (/forum) of my fourm software, to see if it would run on

http://localhost.

It just invokes the open / save file to disk, dialouge. I have PHP4 installed as well as MySQL, so I assume that there is a sepperate problem there to.

The apache documents don't seem too helpfull, so I would appreciate any words of advice you might offer, perhaps it is a simple thing I keep over looking. Any Ideas?

Regards Steve.C.

 

[RhythmAce]

I'm not sure but I think that an updater comes with the dyndns service. basically, this software checks your ip at intervals you set anywhere from a few minutes to months. You will set apache to "Listen" for all addresses on whichever port dyndns assigns. In some cases, you tell them which port you are using. So lets\'s say you are using port 8080 because your isp blocks port 80. You would set the Listen directive like this: Listen *:8080

If your isp does not block port 80 then you can leave it at the default *.80 then apache will listen for any address the http request comes in for. Apache finds which virtual host (domain) by the ServerName directive. If you are not using virtual hosts, then you would define it in the main section. I can pretty much tell by your accent that you are a Windows sufferer. Once you get the hang of things, you may want to do a google for "wamp". These are packages that come bundled with apache, MySQL and php already configured to work with each other. Some even come with a sample website including a forum.