Apache not able to access document root when outside the network - apache

I have a wordpress site on my debian server. I have done the port forwarding successfully (verified this) to access outside the network. However I get the below error when i try to access outside the network. Am i missing something? Sites-available is set to documentroot at /var/www, which is where my wordpress folder is.
The requested URL /XXXXXX was not found on this server.
Apache/2.2.22 (Debian) Server at 10.1.1.4 Port 80
I really hope someone can help me on this as i have spent almost a week over this.
Thanks!

I do this kind of stuff on daily basis. Lets go through the basics.
Firstly, confirm that you can access your server within your private network http://yourserverLANip:80
If possible, do not use server itself to test it (eg localhost:80), use other device as laptop or any other device within the same LAN.
With that test you can confirm that:
apache listens on port 80
apache accepts requests from other clients within your private network
wordpress is set up correctly
If wordpress site pops up we can assume that apache and private network configuration is correct and you'd need to move your debugging to WAN/public network configuration.
It would be wise to recheck apache security settings at this point.
From here, things get a little more complicated.
I believe you mean public WWW when you say "outside-the-network". You want to make your site public to every internet user on the planet.
I assume that you have a registered domain name (eg yourwebsitename.com) and a static public IP address at the location where the server is located (if you host it at home, static IP is fixed to your modem).
These two are "must", if you want to host anything that public can consume.
If you host your apache for yourself, you dont need your domain name, but you'd need to access your server through your public IP yourpublicIP:80 and it's not easy to use for other people.
Now lets go on with WAN debugging.
Validate that:
your domain DNS WWW settings are pointing to your public IP address
at your server location. you can do it through the control panel of
your domain registrant company.
you have a static public IP address where your server is hosted
your modem accepts incoming ports (80). this is done through modem
firewall settings.
that the port 80 is redirected to your server private IP address (LAN
ip).
The flow for redirecting clients to your server is something like that:
Client->WWW->internet service provider->yourpublicIP->modem->yourserver at LAN
Good hunting!

Related

Cant access my website through its IP address

I have hosting with godaddy with a private IP address. I am able to access my websites and others via the domain name, but not via IP Address.
I am now trying to access the HTTP via port 80 but it gives an error that the website is not setup.
Are there any workarounds on turning allowing accessing the website and other folders through the IP address over http?
This sounds to me like you were on a managed webpack that grants you access to the to-be-served content but not to the webserver or its config itself.
What you are experiencing there is an effect of a technique called virtual-hosts in which multiple sites are tied to one IP address. For this to work in the realm of HTTP, the Host header got introduced in HTTP/1.1. It allows clients to send a domain name for which they want to receive content.
If you request a raw IP, though, the Host header won't look like Host: example.com but rather like Host: 123.45.67.89. The server will not be able to associate a domainname with this as it is unlikely to be found elsewhere in the request. Therefore, it will be forced to serve content out of its default document directory which usually contains further documentations regarding the further configuration of the webserver in question. Linux distributions like to add additional informations specific to them. Check if you see any mentioning of e.g. Debian, RedHat, or Centos.
I am not sure if this is fixable. Usually webservers like Apache support IP-based virtual hosts. If a masshoster like godaddy is really going to address this is uncertain. Try to contact their support and see.
1]If you are using host headers, make sure you have a DNS entry pointing your URL to your IP
2]Telnet port 80 from a machine outside your network.If it fails then check with your ISP that port 80 should not block in firewall.

website can be accessed using ip but not with the url(domain name) in wamp

from default httpd.conf to updating the host file and httpd.conf i tried but the website fails to open with domain name give
in host file
<my current public ip address> <domain name>
in httpd.conf
Listen [my public ip]:port
then restart of wamp server and finally restart of PC and of-course change of ip is done in above all.
But of no use
Please help
Thanks for time and response
Aaron,
I think you are misunderstanding the function of the HOSTS file.
The hosts file acts a little like a local DNS Server. Any changes you make to it will only effect the single PC that you made the change on.
What the HOST file actually does
When windows starts it starts a service called DNS Client also known as dnscache. That service reads the HOSTS file and seeds the dnscache with any domain names you put in it and the ip that should be connected to for each domain name.
Any program (the browser in this case) that wants to connect to a domain, checks this cache first, to reduce accesses to an actual DNS Server out on the web and therefore speed up the conversion of domain name to Ip Address.
So if you want external users, i.e. anybody on the internet to be able to access your site you have to either purchase a real domain name and get it pointed to your WAN ip address, or use a Dynamic DNS service like DYNDNS or NO-IP, to mention only a few, and get that dynamic dns service to point to your WAN IP.
You will also have to change your Apache config so it will serve that domain name, my suggestion would be to create a Virtual Host to do this.
This post may help with the process of creating a Virtual Host

How to access Apache server from inside network?

Hi, I've created an Apache server and it's accessible through its domain name outside of my home network. I can also access it by going to the localhost on the PC that serves the site. My problem is that I can't access the site from any other devices connected to my network. I've tried both domain and localhost, and neither of them work. Is it possible to make the site accessible to devices within the network that its hosted on?
Your problem is probably caused by NAT: you have a public domain for your apache webserver, which points to your public IP. From inside your network, your apache's server cannot be reached through your public IP because of network address translation. But you apache webserver will also have a private IP address in the form of 192.168.1.X (or something similar). So, from a PC in your private network, just point to the private IP address of your apache's web server and it will work.
For completeness, I must also mention the fact that this solution relies on the settings you made in your httpd.conf file in apache: if the virtual host is mapped to *:80 (or *:port) everything will be fine

Apache: how can I access my webpage from a computer outside my network?

I want to access my webpage from a computer outside the network. Our network has IPs like 192.168.0.1-192.168.0.255. The network is connected to Internet through a local gateway 192.168.0.1 and gets to DNS server 193.xxx.xxx.xxx.
Let's say my computer has the IP 192.168.0.50. How can I my website from my server (Apache) from a computer which is not from our network (let's say 254.231.52.xxx)?
Thank you!
Short answer:
The solution to this would be to find out the 'external IP' of your router and enable a port forwarding for port 80 and 443 to your local IP.
Long answer:
The Internet is divided into 'public' and 'private' IP spaces. Private IPs are usually not directly accessible from a 'public' IP.
The IPs from the 192.168.0.1-255 are from one of these private subnets.
Your router (at home) usually has multiple IPs. One or more from your local private network (192.168.0.X) and one from your local ISP (I guess something like 193.xxx.xxx.xxx because your DNS is in that network) which is from the 'public' space.
To connect to your computer with the private IP from a public IP like the mentioned 254.231.52.xxx you would have to connect to the public IP of your router (the 193... one). You would also have to enable a mechanism that is called 'port forwarding'. This effectivley takes all internet traffic arriving at the public IP of your router on the forwarded ports and transfers it to the private IP you configured the forwarding to.
E.g. 254.231.52.. -> 193...:80 -> 192.168...:80
Usually home routers have a configuration page where you can do this.
The required ports you would probably use are 80 (http) and 443 (https).
Another possibility is using so called http-proxies which are also usually supported as a configuration option one home routers. You should refer to the manual of your router for configuration instructions of this.
What you need is to identify your home computer from the whole internet in order to access from outside.
This tutorial can help you
http://kyokasuigetsu25.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/how-to-access-localhost-of-computers-outside-the-network/
But if you only have plain html files ( css, js too ) you could use Dropbox and share your sites folder. This way you could be working locally and files would be synced to your public folder
Hope it helps
If you have sufficient privilege to configure the router (on the gateway machine), then you can use "port forwarding" to do that.
Go to your router settings and configure it so that it forwards the packets it receives on port 80 to your machine. Assuming your router has a valid IP itself (say x.x.x.x) you can access your Apache server on: http://x.x.x.x/.
You can use any other port instead of 80 and access your Apache through http://x.x.x.x:PORT/ of course.
If you don't have sufficient privileges, then nothing comes to my mind except using reverse tunneling using SSH or similar protocols.
Most gateways (router) have an VirtualServer option which you can point to the local server (192.168.0.50)
You could use something like dyndns.org to setup a permanent hostname to your server. i.e. mylocalserver.dyndns.org
A public name for your machine needs to be set up in DNS to point to your networks' router. Then you will need to set up your router to redirect traffic for that name to the machine in question. Also the firewall needs to be set up to allow that.

Apache unable to access local DNS ip address

I just set up a server in my house using private IP.
I can access my server using my domain from outside network/ outside from my house.
But I cannot access it from local network using my domain or my private IP address.
What can be the problem for this? is it the Apache settings?
(I can access it if I edit the /etc/hosts file)
Did you use the internal or external IP in your hosts file to get it working? If it was external IP it's probably the DNS issue. If it was the internal IP, the issue could be in the routers NAT.
Some routers/setups will only apply their NAT rules on packets traversing the external internet facing interface.
____________
| |
Server ---IntIf-|IntIP--ExtIP|-ExtIf--- Internet
|____________|
This is a bit simplified but basically when you access the external IP from the internal network the packet, following the dotted line, reaches the routers external IP before a NAT rule can be applied on ExtIf and then the router can't find anything listening so rejects/drops the connection.
To confirm if it is the DNS problem. Run an nslookup $domain from both your local and external boxes and see if they return the same IP address. If the IP's are the same and it's still not working you will need to take a closer look at the router, hopefully that's possible. If not you may need an internal DNS server that can respond with the internal IP addresses for any domains it knows about then forward any other requests externally.
The NAT issue is called NAT Loopback, Hairpinning or Reflection. See here for a linux solution.
If you can access it when you put in an entry in /etc/hosts, then likely it is DNS related. I am assuming you are putting in the public (external IP) and not an internal IP for testing.
If you have recently updated your DNS, then likely your local router (or ISP's DNS server) will still have the old IP cached or the fact that there is no DNS record setup cached. You could reboot your router to try and clear the cached entry, but it could well be cached at the ISP and you can only wait until it updates there (usually somewhere under 24 hours, often just a few hours). However, you could configure your computer to use a different DNS server for a while - eg. 8.8.8.8 or 4.4.4.4 which are both run by Google.