[harrisjamieh]

So I was looking around my Mac, and came accross personal web sharing and the whole Apache thing.

I've made a little html page using iWeb, and wanted to use my iMac as a really basic server for that one webpage at my house. It works fine when I try to view the page on my iBook using the address my iMac gives me, but when I try to view the page on any windows PC on my network, it won't load. Anyone got any ideas why?

I would love to use this feature at school - use the PM we have as a web server for just a few iWeb created pages, and allow anyone around the school to access it with the address which would be publically advertised. Problem is, all but 1 computer in the entire school is Windows XP, so if, like at home, you can't view the pages from the web server on XP, then its pointless.

Any ideas on ways to get it to work with XP?

[Chuckit]

Are they actually on the same network or are they on different routers? Because if the iMac is behind a router, you'll need to forward port 80 to the iMac's IP address and use the router's address to access it.

It shouldn't make a difference what platform the person loading the page is on. Probably the majority of sites on the Web run on Apache, so you know that's not the problem.

[harrisjamieh]

I have 5 computers in my house, 2 Macs, and 3 PCs, all of which are wirelessly connected 2 my wireless modem/router (so just the one).

Just to be totally ignorant, how on earth do I forward pot 80 to the iMacs IP?

Cheers

[philm]

You can usually do this using the web interface which you use to configure you router. If you just plugged in your router and it worked, you many never have done this. You need to know the IP address for your router and put this in your web browser. This IP address will be in the manual for the router. It will be on the same subnet as your Mac's 'internal' IP address and might end 254. Mine is 192.168.123.254. You can then configure the port forwarding bit of the web interface to arrange the port forwarding.

[bradoesch]

This site will tell you how to get into your router: http://www.portforward.com/routers.htm

[harrisjamieh]

Cheers people, I got it working

[harrisjamieh]

OK, so its all working and everything, but I can't work out how to put password protection on the sites, because as it stands, anyone could get to my site if they knew (or guessed?) my IP address. Any ideas?

Cheers

[philm]

You need to get into .htaccess and .htpasswd files which look after access to your website. I would strongly recommend that you read these Apache web pages.

You can configure these files manually if you know a bit of UNIX or by using Weblock if you don't.

[zro]

I suggest using htdigest instead of htpasswd.

Authentication, Authorization, and Access Control

Be aware that AuthName is the realm you assign a user to using htdigest.