Serve site on a LAN

[purpleski]

Hi

I have a website which I want the three people on my Local Area Network to be able to see. I have Apache on my machine where the site resides for editing etc. At

http://localhost/

and for me it works perfectly. I see the SSI's, I get custom error messages etc.

But how to I "serve" the pages to the other two computers on the network. If I point their browser to

C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\purpleski

which is where the files actually reside on my harddrive the do not see SSI's etc for obvious reasons.

How do they access

http://localhost/

on my machine? Is it possible?

We are all running Windows 2000 Proffessional and are networked through a Netgear Ethernet EN104TP hub.

Thanks.

 

[HondaSir]

http://localhost

will only work on your computer...

ex.
Computer Name Ip Address Function
COMP001 192.168.1.010 Apache Server
COMP002 192.168.1.020 Client
COMP003 192.168.1.030 Client

COMP002 and COMP003 will need to either use

http://COMP001

or

http://192.168.1.010

to access the Apache Server on your LAN

Hope that this helps

 

[purpleski]

Thanks for that I am sure this is going to get me there but I don't completely understand.

The IP of my computer is
198.162.0.1

Subnet mask is
255.255.255.0

The name of my computer is Michael.

If I type

http://198.162.0.1/index.htm

in one of the computers on the network I just get a file not found in the browser.

Any thoughts any settings I need to change?

 

[smah]

That address should work. It should also work without the "/index.htm". Is there any firewall software running on the Apache machine?

 

[purpleski]

Thanks

Yes I have ZoneAlarm. I will disable this and see what happens.

 

[purpleski]

No still won't see it at 192.168.0.1. So I don't know what I am doing wrong.

Any ideas?

 

[smah]

sometimes disabling zonealarm isn't quite enough - there might be one component of ZA still running (can't remember what it's called though). Try adding the networked computers to your 'trusted zone' or 'trusted computers' or similar.

 

[RhythmAce]

You should be able to use the host name i.e.

http://michael.

Can you ping michael? Make sure that apache is NOT bound to the loopback device. For example this would be a bad thing -> Listen 127.0.0.1. It should have your lan ip or better yet just the port (Listen 80). This will cause apache to listen for all addresses on port 80 the default port for http traffic.

 

[purpleski]

RythmAce

Sorry I don't understand this!

You should be able to use the host name i.e.

http://michael.

Can you ping michael? Make sure that apache is NOT bound to the loopback device. For example this would be a bad thing -> Listen 127.0.0.1. It should have your lan ip or better yet just the port (Listen 80). This will cause apache to listen for all addresses on port
80 the default port for http traffic.

What does ping mean?

And what does "Make sure that apache is NOT bound to the loopback device mean"

Thanks?

 

[smah]

Ping is a command that sends a few packets of data to the machine you specify. This is generally used to see if there is a response. If there is no response (timeout) this would indicate a problem with your network configurateion. For example, from a command prompt type:
ping localhost this is your own machine
ping 127.0.0.1 this is called the loopback device - once again your own machine
ping 198.162.0.1 from another machine, this would send packets to your server machine BTW, are you sure about this address?
ping Michael from another machine, this would send packets to your server machine

Within Apache's configuration file (httpd.conf) There is are several directive that tell apache where to listen and what port to listen on. You want apache to listen on your network connection on port 80, not the loopback device. Look for the directives: BindAddress, Port, Listen, and VirtualHost. Make sure none of these is set for 127.0.0.1

 

[RhythmAce]

Even though you assingn a name to a machine, it still referes to itself as localhost with the alias localhost.localdomain. It is assigned to the loopback device (lo) and has the ip 127.0.0.1 (some may laugh at me for calling that an ip). When you give a name to a machine such as michael, you assign michael to a network device (eth0) with the ip 192.168.0.1 (your example). Now, when you type

http://localhost

in the local machine's browser, the request gets sent to port 80 (default port for http traffic)and whatever is listening on that port will answer. By default, apache is "bound" to port 80. Back in the olden days, apache had 3 directives to bind to either an ip address and/or port. They were "Listen", "Bind" and "Port". Bind and port are nolonger used. With the Listen directive you can bind to a port, an ip or both. The Listen directive is in the global section of httpd.conf and should be set to either of the following:

Listen 80
or
Listen 192.168.0.1:80

Pinging is something submarines do to see if there's something in the water with them. You can go to the dos prompt of another machine and type "ping 192.168.0.1" (no quotes) and it should tell you it it sees it. Next type ping michael and it should see that also. If not, there is a problem with your network setup. I'm assuming that 198.162.0.1 was a typo.

 

[purpleski]

Thanks for the post RythmAce. Something must still be wrong in my setup. Because it still does not work.

Can I post my httpd.conf file somewhere so that you can take a look? Or is there something other than this that could be causing the problem.

 

[RhythmAce]

The problem isn't with httpd.conf. If you checked the things we have suggested, then it should work as far as apache goes. The problem may be in your network setup. Can you tell me how the machines are connected to each other? Are you using a switch or router? Can other machines ping the server? Do you have any type of firewall at all? Do these machines see each other in nework neighborhood? Sometimes when you check these, the answer will jump right out at you. Let me know what you come up with.

 

[LindsayeCroft]

I am having a similar problem, i have just installed redhat 9 and apache on a machine. I am completley new comming from a windows backgroud. i have checked all the things mentioned before, i can ping my redhat server from other machines and it resolves the name to an ip address i can also ping all other machines on my win2k network from my redhat machine and that is fine.

I am just wondering if the problem lies with my ISA server on the network, if i am running an intranet on my isa server is that interfering when i put the address of the redhat server in my browser

ANy help appreciated

lindsay

 

[smah]

Does similar problem mean:

http://localhost

serves the page correctly on the linux machine but

http://RH9ipadddress

from some other machine does not work?

 

[LindsayeCroft]

Yes, that's why i was wondering if ISA Server could be getting in the way when trying to view from elsewhere on the network?