Give all computers in a network to access localhost

[Thew]

Hi

I just installed apache on my computer (with easyphp).
It works fine. But now i have a question.

I have at my house an network (just a normal house network, where all computers are connected to, so they all can acces the internet).
Is it possible that all my computers can get acces to the localhost here on my computer?

[Niheel]

You could setup the the dev environment in a VM. Then assign that VM it's own IP on the network. Every machine then has the following in the HOSTS file.

192.168.1.XXX devdomain.com

So everytime you access devdomain.com it will access the VM.

[Thew]

Iam sorry, please explain it better, i am new to this =)

[Oralloy]

@Thew,

There are a few possibilites on how to go about it. It depends on how your home network is set up.

If your local router is also providing DHCP and DNS services, then you can probably access the local computers by their existing names.

If not, then you need to know your server's IP address.

Windows:
IPCONFIG /SHOW /ALL

Linux
ifconfig

You should see a system address - it'll probably look life four small integers separated by dots. Typically it'll start with 192.168 but it is not guaranteed to be so.

Let's assume you see 192.168.0.4 as your address.

If you don't have DNS locally, you're going to have to use the addresses or enter names in the hosts file.

Typically your URLs will look something like:

• HTTP://localhost/file.php
• HTTP://192.168.0.4/service/file.php

The problem with DNS is that it dynamically allocates addresses. If you leave a computer off for some period of time, the address is returned to the pool, and your computer may get a different address next time you turn it on.

So, if you put names and addresses in your hosts files, be aware that they may become obsolete.

Now that you're completely confused, think about it, look up DNS and read a little bit, and then we'll help you sort things out.

[Thew]

@oralloy i've tried it (with local DNS), but when i checked the URL:

http://192.168.0.1/service/index.php,

I came up with a popup login. Is that normal? Or not?

[Thew]

Anyone? Please?

[Oralloy]

@Thew,

Sorry for the long delay. I'm on the Amerikan Left Coast, so my hours are a little skewed from most Bytes usesr. It's 6:00 and I just got into work.

Is the pop-up prompting for login, or something else?

If you can give us the specifics of the pop-up, that'll help.

[Thew]

@oralloy

Yes, its a popup login, where it asks for a username and a password, to let me connect to 192.168.0.1?

[Oralloy]

Exactly.

Are you certain that 192.168.0.1 is the IP address of your server, and not the router?

Remember that the IP address should be the IP of the computer running easyphp.

BTW, I have about two hours, then I'm gone for the weekend. Hopefully we can get this done by then. If not, you many need to start a new thread to get some of the other folks to help finish things off.

Luck!

[Oralloy]

Oh, I had another thought, too. Is your Web server only serving to port 127.0.0.1, or is it serving to the computer's address, as well.

This is important, because if it's not serving to your computer's external address, none of your other systems will be able to access the easyphp server.

[Thew]

That was just the problem, so i think this will be inpossible. But thanks for helping, too bad it wasnt usefull.

[Oralloy]

@Thew,

Don't give up yet.

Do you know the IP address of the server running easyphp?

If it's a windows machine, you can pop a DOS box and run the command

ipconfig /all

to see your IP address. Look in the output, there should be a line "IP Address". Don't just look at the numbers.

Then you can run

netstat -a

to see all the ports your computer is "listening" on.

If the port shows as your computer name (or some variation thereof), you're good.

If the port shows listening on 127.0.0.1, then it's localhost only.

Luck!

[Thew]

Hey

When i do ipconfig /all, it returns at IP-Adress:

192.168.0.1 and at netstat -a it returns a list with

<myaccountname>:<some port numbers>
<myaccountname>:<some port numbers>
<myaccountname>:<some port numbers>
<myaccountname>:<some port numbers>
<myaccountname>:<some port numbers>
<myaccountname>:<some port numbers>
...

What can i do with this data to make it happen?

[Oralloy]

Is your account name the same as your computer name?

What does it say next to ports 80 and 443?

[Oralloy]

Still, it seems like your web server is running on the external IP address, and not just on the loopback address (127.0.0.1).

Next, try accessing your own server by using a browser on the same computer:

HTTP://##.##.##.##/the-rest-here

Hopefully it'll connect locally from the same computer.

[Thew]

'Hopefully it'll connect locally from the same computer.'

Well it doesnt. Shall i check on the other computers what ipconfig /all and netstat-a gives?

[Oralloy]

I'd hoped you'd managed to figure it out, and simply hadn't followed up.

I'm off for three days in about 10 hours, be forewarned.

Unfortunately at this point I'm a little confused.

Do you know which port your web server is using?

Can you try running the following and posting the result here:

ipconfig /all > result.txt
netstat -a -b >> result.txt
 

Then we can see what the addresses are with a good degree of certainty.