Re: The simplest of questions ...

[Rich Bowen <rbowen@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Apr 22, 2008, at 11:00, Tall Paul wrote:

I am guessing that this is the simplest problem there is but it has me stumped. I installed Apache and PHP and ran the localhost tests and all is well. I have a static IP and I am behind a US Robotics router in which I forwarded port 80 to this PC. I sent my IP (68.82.124.204) to my sister and asked her to test the server. She put http://68.82.124.204 in her browser and got the "page not found" message. So she tried http://68.82.124.204:80 and got the same results. From what I understand I cannot access my own server via my own IP so that leaves 2 questions.

1. What does someone have to enter in a browser to access my server?

2. How can I test the connection short of using someone else's internet connection?

First of all, it's very helpful to test this kind of thing in something other than Internet Explorer, so that the error message doesn't try to be smarter than the user. I'm not getting a "page not found" message at that address, but getting a "connection refused" message there, which indicates that either the router is not, in fact, forwarding the IP address, or that your ISP blocks port 80. The latter is actually extremely common - most ISPs don't want you running a website without paying more for the service. Try running on an alternate port such as 8080 or 8888, and see if it works there. Or call your ISP and ask what their policy is on hosted services.

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Rich Bowen

rbowen@xxxxxxxxxxx