Publish my apache site

[smolloy]

So the computer you have apache running on is part of a network, and is connected to the internet via that network (instead of being connected directly to the internet)?

If so you might have to look into port forwarding. Can you give us a good description or diagram of your network, and how the apache machine connects to the web?

[adrenaline]

Do you have a fully qualified domain name? Is it set in DNS?

what happens if you run this in your shell

nslookup yourfullyqualifieddomainname.com

How are your other web pages set up? By IP or by name in the .conf file?

[sunhaze]

in answer to smolloy's question my network is very basic, just a linksys WRT54G, my main computer and linux box(witch runs apache) are wired via ethernet hub. 2 other computer connected wireless witch is just wep encrypted. The router itself then connects to my cable modem, so all computers in the house go through the router. My main computer and the linux box are connected through samba, the 2 wireless are seperate. The only firewall i have is on my main computer. Iv had alot of pain trying to port forward this computer to host services in the past : (.

to answer adrenaline i dont have a domain name, and basicly thats why i started this thread was to ask what i needed to do to get everything up. Im a noober to linux so bare with me.

[smolloy]

in answer to smolloy's question my network is very basic, just a linksys WRT54G, my main computer and linux box(witch runs apache) are wired via ethernet hub. 2 other computer connected wireless witch is just wep encrypted. The router itself then connects to my cable modem, so all computers in the house go through the router. My main computer and the linux box are connected through samba, the 2 wireless are seperate. The only firewall i have is on my main computer. Iv had alot of pain trying to port forward this computer to host services in the past : (.

I'm not sure I understand. Is it like this?

INTERNET <-> Cable Modem <-> WRT54G <-> Hub <-> Windows computer
                               |         |
                               |         -> Linux Box
                               |
                               -> Two computers via wireless network

[adrenaline]

Ok if you are only interested in getting apache running than you can do IP/~username, but if you want yourdomain.com to resolve then you will have to go to somewhere like godaddy.com and buy a domain name then you will need to either have godaddy run your dns for it or your ISP (I prefer godaddy myself) then after a couple of days yourdomain.com is running.

If you want me to test your site now pm me your IP address and I will see if I can see it.

[smolloy]

Ok if you are only interested in getting apache running than you can do IP/~username, but if you want yourdomain.com to resolve then you will have to go to somewhere like godaddy.com and buy a domain name ....

You could always check out DynDNS.org which will allow you to get a free domain name (no strings attached). That's what I've used for my website (click here).

[adrenaline]

smolloy I personally don't have any experience with ddyns, but I might look into it I usually just buy a domain and host it.

On another note congratulations.

[sunhaze]

yeah smolloy thats an acurate diagram, so your saying if I get a domain name then theres a way to connect my network i.p on the web? Because right now everything runs fine, I just havnt been able to establish connection with the server on other peoples connection. I dont realy care about a .com name, if something like a free alternative works thats fine, this is merely just for small serving purposes. Also Iv found the only way to connect to is through the standard 127.0.0.1 or my network i.p 192.168.1.103, true i.p didnt work. Is there something i need to edit in Yast? samba server or runlevel editor?

[smolloy]

yeah smolloy thats an acurate diagram, so your saying if I get a domain name then theres a way to connect my network i.p on the web? Because right now everything runs fine, I just havnt been able to establish connection with the server on other peoples connection. I dont realy care about a .com name, if something like a free alternative works thats fine, this is merely just for small serving purposes. Also Iv found the only way to connect to is through the standard 127.0.0.1 or my network i.p 192.168.1.103, true i.p didnt work. Is there something i need to edit in Yast? samba server or runlevel editor?

Before you get a domain name, we first need to solve the IP address problem. At the moment your linux box has a local IP address (it begins 192....), so it can't be seen from outside the network. Between it and the internet there are three steps -- the cable modem, the wireless router, and a hub. Each time you request a web page from that linux box, the router and the hub take care of converting incoming traffic from the IP address of the remote site to the internal IP of the linux box. From the point of view of the internet, you only have one IP address for all four computers, and that is the IP address of the cable modem.

When someone wants to view your web page, they will make a request to port 80 of the IP address of the cable modem. This will automatically be transferred to the router, however the router does not yet know to pass these requests on to the hub, which should then pass them on to the linux box. This is known as port forwarding, and setting this up will allow port 80 of your linux box to be visible to the outside world.

When you first set up your network, you probably had to configure the router and the hub via a firefox or explorer. So you should check back through these configuration utilities to see how to forward ports through each of these.

Once you've done this, and you can see your web page from the external IP, then you can start sorting out a domain name.

On another note congratulations.

Thanks adrenaline! Exciting times!

[sunhaze]

Thanks, so im guessing my "true i.p" is the one that needs to be ported. I wonder if apache has some liturature on this.