Forum Moderators: phranque
How do I go about accessing my computer from outside of my home network? I would like to be able to browse the files and view sites there etc, and allow some clients to do the same.
Can anyone tell me, briefly, how this is done, or point me in a direction to do this?
I've searched high and low.
if I type in my IP address in the address bar, I can see my home server, this is because I am back here on my home network, right?
Depends. If the IP you enter is a LAN one, then yes, that would work for your LAN only. If you can access it using the external IP then others should be able to do the same.
Not that I have a useful answer to your overall question, but if you're using your ISP address and seeing your server, then it sounds like you're "almost there."
Jim
BTW why did Jim type that 192 IP - I cant access it though.
oooo learn another new thing :)
But mipapage getting it up is another thing, I thing it will be easily h*cked if so happens a hcker stumbles upon thine site? unless u've got firewall
[edited by: operafan at 6:59 am (utc) on Dec. 18, 2003]
192.168.xx.xx is an IP address range reserved for internal networks. It is non-routable and cannot be used on the internet, only within an intranet like 127.0.xx.xx. There are several others.
(Typing quietly so as to not take the thread off-topic)
Jim
Thanks for the replies! even better becuase it seems that I am
almost there
as the IP that I was referring to was my ISP IP.
So what's next? I wanted to test this, so I'm thinking to wander on down to the local cyber cafe and see what I can do. I don't suppose that there is anywhere online where I could test this?
WRT hackers etc, I was going to set up some form of log in page and have an .htaccess make that the default entry spot.
I basically want this for me and for clients, so I'm not too worried about having DNS a pointed here either.
(for now, i'd have to have clients log in from our site, where they'd be redirected to our server).
From my experience or reading as long as you have the DNS pointed to the correct domain/IP , it's ready to serve the audience.
Well good luck with your project, it's real fun :)
Well, getting it live was easy! Now to protect it. Any suggestions of online resources appreciated, in the meantime I'm off to google. Thanks for the help everyone!
Well good luck with your project, it's real fun :)
<nervously> hehehaha..ha...
Is there no other magic to be performed? No basic do's and don'ts that everyone *should* be doing?
Have you looked at your log files yet?
When I exposed my computer's Apache server (I just use it for testing) to the whole Internet, within minutes there were TONS of entries from people trying to learn more about what was on my computer.
Yes, it quite fun, and yes, people have hit us! Neat stuff, though it seems that I've attracted the bad side of the neighboorhood as I've had some weird file requests...
In your case you can still have your server at home not accessible from outside if you have not used the DNS pointer. Even at that, you can still instruct your router or configure your firewall detailing what Apache should do and not do. You can put Apache under lock and key :-)
Using some firewalls you can set the rules on what should be and not be.
Or you could use a series of allow and deny directives in hpttd.conf, this is done on a directory by directory basis. For examle:
<Directory "/">
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from 127.0.0.1
Allow from localhost
</Directory>
In this case, nobody gets to the site root except the machine that is running Apache.
Then:
<Directory "/var/www/html">
Options Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from 127.0.0.1
Allow from localhost
Allow from client IP here
</Directory>
allows specific clients access to the "html" directory, etc. (The "Options" and "AllowOverride" directives included are for example only, yours may need to be different, depends on what you want to permit your clients to do.)
This approach should offer good security but it could take some time to setup, depending how long your client list is and how many directories need attention.
DaveAtIFG, I like the idea, but we're going to be running our project management software on this server, and will need to allow our clients access from a lot of varying ip addresses, I would imagine.
The setup I went for was to put everything into a directory, call it... "safehouse". That directory contains all of our internal stuff, and is protected by an htaccess/htpsswd file combo. Visitors to our site are shunted either to index.php or they get a 404 page (and if they happen to know a path into 'safehouse' they get prompted for a password).
Index.php has a login - the client logs in and gets redirected to their specific area, where they can do all they want. The client areas sit outside of 'safehouse', as I have no idea how to pass the PHP_AUTH value to the htaccess login, but no matter - you need to log in to get in.
I (maybe naively) think that this will work well - the drawback is that you always have to be in a PHP environment, which for us is fine because our CMS and proj-management software (modified php collab) are all PHP.
The crappy part is that locally you always have to log in...!ding! <light goes on> That's where I can use what you said DaveAtIFG, perfect. Thanks a lot!
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